By now, everyone has heard of COVID-19, the coronavirus rapidly spreading across the globe. In response to this fast-moving coronavirus, the international medical community has come up with a pretty simple, but effective way to stop it: quarantine. In other words, isolate yourself to keep from getting infected. And it seems to be working.
As hard as it may be to believe, there may actually be something spreading even faster than COVID-19. Coronavirus-themed scams and phishing attacks. And it’s only going to get worse because more people are working from home where they have even less protection from these threats than they do at work.
How bad are things getting? According to Reuters, “Victims in the United Kingdom have lost more than 800,000 pounds ($1 million) to coronavirus-linked scams since last month, with criminals tricking fearful people who wanted to buy protective masks. Scammers had sent coronavirus-themed phishing emails which purported to be from research organizations linked to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO).”
These attacks started almost the minute COVID-19 did. From an article on Help Net Security, attackers have “been tricking users with fake email notifications and fake alerts impersonating local authorities, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the World Health Organization (WHO) to deliver malware or to steal email credentials.”
As time goes by, the phishing emails have become more targeted. “More localized variants of these malicious emails have been spotted as the virus spread to other countries: malware peddlers are delivering Trickbot to Italian-speaking victims.” Written in Italian of course.
Who is most at risk for these coronavirus threats? Large corporations which rely on international supply chains originating in China and other affected regions, according to Help Net Security. “Personnel at these organizations have heightened interest in news and developments related to the virus, potentially making them more susceptible to social engineering that tricks them into clicking on malicious links.“
These COVID-19 attacks primarily come in one of two varieties. “The first involves the AZORult malware, which researchers witnessed was the basis for a phishing campaign targeting members of the shipping industry in January of this year. The second phishing campaign relies on the Emotet Trojan. Victims in Japan have received emails claiming to contain important information about the coronavirus, but clicking on the link activates Emotet.”
What’s the solution? A second quarantine—a technological quarantine. One that keeps you and your employees isolated from these fast-moving scams. One such quarantine solution? Phish Protection.
Phish Protection is cloud-based email scanning software that effectively quarantines your inbox from threatening emails. Before you receive any email, it first gets rerouted to Phish Protection where it gets scanned in real-time: both the contents of the email AND the embedded links. And if anything is found to be malicious, it gets blocked and never makes it to your inbox. The email is quarantined and you are protected without ever knowing you were under attack.
Phish Protection requires no hardware, no software and no maintenance. It works with all email services, sets up in 10 minutes and best of all, costs only pennies per user per month.
Try Phish Protection risk free for 30 days. Both COVID-19 threats will be here for a while. You’d better protect yourself from both.