Washington DC – Since December 31st the Coronavirus started taking unexpected number of human lives. As of today, Oct 08 2020, over 35 million cases of COVID-19 are conformed, 1,064, 604 people died and 27,572,859 people have been recovered from the disease worldwide. Most countries were on lock down for months and people were forced to isolate at their home. When we look at the chart on John Hopkin’s website, there is no sign of slowing down the COVID-19 Pandemic. The guidelines are issued by the CDC and WHO are not seriously being followed in many places.
As the Coronavirus is spreading out aggressively and killing thousands of people daily, Biotech companies are working diligently to develop a vaccine. It is expected to have the final phase to be completed in a few weeks in US. After the last phase of the trial, it may take time for final approval then distribution time of the vaccine worldwide will remain to be seen.
During the Pandemic, the internet became the main source of communication worldwide. Companies have allowed staff to work from home through the internet to continue business operation and it is still being permitted to perform daily work-related tasks remotely. Schools, colleges, universities and training institutions have offered all virtual classes for students to continue their education.
Since the social distancing is required, family, cultural, social and political events are being performed through the virtual platforms provided by Zoom, Microsoft Team, Slack, CISCO, Google, Apple and many other companies. In order to have access to these platforms you are expected to have a mobile device or a computer along with the internet.
As the internet and computers are becoming a necessity of our lives, sophisticated cybercrimes are occurring at exponential growth.
A report published on the Interpole website indicates that since the outbreak of COVID-19, Phishing and scam fraud increased in total by 59% because more and more people are using the internet.
A hacker creates a duplicate website and send that link to a victim via email or text message to steal information from the victim. The solution to this problem is to check the valid website address of the company. Since the outbreak, two-thirds of members countries of Interpol which responded to the global cybercrime survey that phishing and online fraud are significantly used.
Organizations have been targeted through the Ransomware/Malware attack during the Covid-19 increasing the rate to 36%. Computer and mobile devices can download Ransomware viruses automatically if a user visit malware infected website. Once the computer is compromised with the virus, the hard drive on the computer will be locked down and displays a message demanding a fee to be paid in-order for your system to work again.
According to the Interpole survey, other attacking vectors such as Malicious domains registration jumped up to 22%, and fake news publication increased by 14%.
Arthur Taryn Porter, publishes latest COVID-19 scam alerts on cybercrimesupport.org. Based on the news during the pandemic, the following scams are taking place:
1. Charity scams: In the wake of Coronavirus, you are being asked for donations that you don’t recognize. Before you make a charity contribution, verify all the information of that company on the IRS tax exemption web site at (https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/). If you have mistakenly made a contribution to the fraudulent charity, visit (https://fraudsupport.org/incidents/charity-imposter-scams/) ) for further information.
2. Social media scams: Cybercriminals use social media to distribute falls information to create panic during the COVID-19. Only visit trusted profiles;
a. CDC https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019
b. World Health Organization https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019
c. Federal Trade Commission https://www.ftc.gov/coronavirus/scams-consumer-advice
d. Better Business Bureau https://www.bbb.org/council/coronavirus/
3. Romance scams: During the outbreak, many of us are staying home spending more time on the internet. Cybercriminals are taking advantage to lure people into romance scam while you are visiting websites. If you are asked for money from the person you started chatting with, it’s probably a scam. Take a look at this website to prevent you from being exploited. https://fraudsupport.org/incidents/romance-scams/?utm_expid=.IEd4n82ETd2Kyqx_KyO9Kw.1&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Ffraudsupport.org%2Fincident-types%2Fimposter-scams%2F
4. Robocalls: Since Robocalls are less easy to detect, cybercriminals pretend to be an official member/officer of government organizations, and representative of banks. The caller ID can be adjusted to any number to exploit people. Please, visit https://fraudsupport.org/incident-types/hacked-network-device/phone-spoofing-robocalls/ recovery page for help.
Cybercriminals use many tactics through the internet to steal your information. You always need to be careful when you visit a website, when you use your computer and mobile, when you accept a friend request, when you receive a call, when you click email ,and when you receive a text message from unknown persons.
If you live in the US felt that you are being victim of harassment and stalking, distribution of child pornography, credit card fraud, financial fraud, human trafficking, spoofing, identity theft, online defamation or any other internet related crime please www.ic3.gov to file a complaint.
Arthur – Dr. Ramhari Subedi
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