So, these are scary times
but unfortunately there's more to worry about
than just a global pandemic.
New warning from the FBI about coronavirus scams.
Scams related to the coronavirus.
Stealing sensitive personal information.
It could infect your computer.
Any time there's a global event,
hackers like to weaponize it.
So whether it's the Olympics or an election
or a global pandemic,
hackers are trying to leverage whatever the situation is
against users.
I have an old email address
with a pretty good spam filter
and it's just inundated with spam mail
claiming to be everything from the World Health Organization
to COVID-19 vaccines.
Now I'm not gonna take the bait
but believe it or not,
a lot of people will.
It is working that is why
hackers and criminal attackers continue to use it.
Now I don't need to tell you.
Well, maybe I should.
Don't click a link, don't open attachments.
Just delete it.
But for many, that's easier said than done.
Phishing emails have quadrupled
since the coronavirus outbreak.
It's gotten so bad that both the U.S. and the U.K.
Have issued joint warnings about the schemes.
So why have all these phishing schemes
pivoted to coronavirus practically overnight?
So a successful phishing campaign,
it has to be interesting
and it has to sort of look reliable.
On one hand, they want this email to look like
something you're gonna get anyway
but they also want it to grab people's attention
to say Oh I need to click on this urgently
and the coronavirus stuff really fits both of those things.
People are getting an incredible amount of email about it
but it's also a place where people have a lot of hunger
for new information.
But there's one ingredient that COVID-19 pandemic
offers hackers that say a Nigerian prince never could.
Fear.
It is scary.
Millions who are scared right now.
I am just afraid of this week.
The idea behind these schemes is that in times of crisis
or uncertainty or fear,
people just let their guards down.
So in cases where you know something is promised,
maybe people are distracted and not as focused on
who might be sending something.
Or in cases where a hacker is promising information,
when we're scared, we might be more likely to click on it
without thinking twice about who it might be coming from.
On top of the fear-based COVID-19 schemes,
hackers have seized on one of their tried and true lures,
money.
The prospect of a payout from the two trillion dollars
stimulus package in the U.S.
comes with the subject line saying
COVID-19 payment.
Again, delete it.
So it's important to understand who these hackers are
and despite all the stock footage ever made about hackers,
they're not necessarily some shady dude in a hoodie.
These are folks that aren't out
to sort of make a quick buck.
Some of these groups can make
hundreds of millions of dollars in a year
and sort of have the investments
to sort of use that money to reinvest
in sort of grow big capabilities.
Cybersecurity data suggests
that many of these hacking operations
are backed by major nation states.
So we've seen multiple state-sponsored
cyber espionage actors who use coronavirus as a lure.
We've seen North Korea, China and Russia
all employ it to try to compromise their victims.
And it doesn't stop at spam mail.
Fake social media accounts are spreading disinformation
about the coronavirus that back the interest
of countries like China and Russia.
According to the U.S. State Department,
Russia has put forth its entire disinformation apparatus
to spread disinformation about the coronavirus pandemic.
So this includes websites, conventional media
and also they stay swarms of bots on social media platforms
that are doing the work of amplifying
or spreading messages that are false related to the pandemic
Russia's motivation is to sow discord and distrust
and are leveraging the pandemic to create
a lot of fear and uncertainty
and make people doubt healthcare institutions.
Just because the 2016 election came to an end
doesn't mean that disinformation campaigns
from nation state actors and criminal actors
didn't come to an end.
So we are seeing bot nets from Russia, from Iran,
from China,
perfectly willing and capable
of creating chaos through misinformation.
And unfortunately, it kind of gets worse
because hospitals and medical institutions
are a favorite target for hackers.
What they will do is hit a target with ransomware
which is an attack that uses malware
to encrypt or lock down data belonging to an organization.
And they'll charge a ransom for the decryption of that data.
And from a criminal perspective,
those attacks might be more successful
during a time when healthcare institutions are so important.
There is increased targeting on medical facilities,
hospitals, testing centers, primary care physicians
because they are so dire, so desperate
to keep their operations up.
If they shut down, there are lives at stake.
Just as we must band together
to defeat the COVID-19 pandemic,
we must also be vigilant against the people and nations
shamelessly trying to capitalize on these trying times.
In terms of disinformation campaigns,
it's important to think about
who you're receiving information from,
trusting official sources and not believing
everything that's on social media about the pandemic.
Instead, going to trusted news outlets.
Always be on the lookout to communication
that you don't normally get.
Sort of the ways to check that you can double check
who the sender is from,
making sure they're exactly sort of who you're expecting.
Just opening and looking at an email
in your Gmail browser is
it's gonna be very unlikely to infect you.
But your risk increases a lot when you open an attachment
or click on a link.
So you can generally read an email and be okay
but be very wary of attachments or links
especially if they're unexpected.
So while we all understand the temptation to click,
out of fear or even greed,
please do yourself a favor and just delete it.