Impact of COVID-19 on Cybersecurity – Phishing Attacks have Increased Worldwide

What is phishing?

Phishing is one of the most common and easiest cybercrimes. One of the greatest advantages of phishing is that the end result of a successful phishing attack is that the attacker obtains all personal information - enough to access all of the target's personal and business accounts.

The most well-known phishing attack is carried out via emails or social media with suspicious offers that can easily trick people into accepting the offers or handing over passwords or OTPs. The end result is usually a financial loss.

Other problems arise when we are encouraged to download some files or documents which may actually contain virus or malware.

The rise of ransomware and cybercrime

The ongoing period of the Covid-19 pandemic has served as a basis for the rise in cybercrime and ransomware. Protecting yourself, your loved ones and also your organizations from such a threat is an additional challenge for us nowadays.

We are easily swayed by Covid-19 theme bait set up by such groups and can get into serious trouble. The most common baits are based on commodities like vaccines, masks, sanitizers etc. and also in the form of financial frauds like the government. Support or free downloads of technological solutions.

The better option for us to stay at bay with this type of scam is to educate ourselves and others about the decoys and how they work. Awareness programs help us a lot to know about these things. The current atmosphere is online work and everything is new to us. So until we know the ins and outs of this atmosphere, it's better to remain vigilant about your reactions to such lures.

Recent surveys suggest that cybercrime has increased to 220% of pre-Covid 19 cybercrime levels due to the surge in crime during the pandemic season.

Exploiting our fear through phishing

Studies show that when some kind of disaster or pandemic spreads, phishing targets more people. Compared to normal times, people's confusion and despair due to fear is many times higher during an outbreak or disaster. Attackers use this fear to breach our defenses against phishing.

The Ebola virus is shaking the world more than usual. The death toll and spread are causing great panic around the world. It was found that in that short period of time, more than 300,000 spam emails and 800,000 fraudulent emails were sent worldwide, targeting the fear-fueled society.

Another such incident occurred during the recent Australian bushfire. It drew global attention from financiers and attackers. The decoy was designed so that the attackers posed as the government. Organization or non-profit community that accepts donations and assistance from the global community. The result has been an increase in cybercrime and people being robbed of their money.

The same situation of phishing emails and scams has been reported in other natural disasters across the world like floods in North India, Nipah virus outbreak in Bangladesh and South India, tornado devastation in USA etc.

The same decoy has been modified and is now being used by cyber attackers in the Covid-19 pandemic season. Fear and ignorance were used as weapons by these people. Financial aid, vaccines, quick recovery drugs—all of these issues are used to lure in the unsuspecting.

From all of the above, we can understand one simple fact – the main target of attackers are usually novice internet users or financially unstable family members affected by fear of getting into financial trouble.

self-awareness and prevention

The best course of action is not to donate without proper verification or fall for any type of post or offer. There is no shame in asking others about something we are not familiar with. Having a second thought before clicking unwanted links or emails is also a good way to boost confidence.

Another notable fact is that in the last two years there has been a huge increase in real-time phishing proxies. An increase in RTPPs means an increase in fraudulent login attempts. The main goal is to target people who are not so familiar with new technologies and news related to scammers and phishing.

In conclusion, we can say that the increased use of online services during the pandemic period has increased the opportunities for attackers. Mixed with society's fear, the bait is working better than ever and because of this, more and more cases are being reported around the world every day. Widespread collaboration between individuals in educating and finding new and effective anti-phishing methods is a key requirement today.

By: Impact of COVID-19 on Cybersecurity – Phishing Attacks have Increased Worldwide