Hackers Create 4,000 Coronavirus-Related Domains To Scam Users

Although the surging spread of coronavirus is a nightmare for people across countries, it’s still another chance for various types of villains. Due to people’s curiosity over the epidemic, hackers and cybercriminals reportedly are making use of people's search interest to gain dirty benefits. The security firm Checkpoint said in a release that coronavirus-related domains boast a 50-percent-higher malicious rate as compared to the average rate of all registered domains.

Based on Checkpoint Threat Intelligence, the research has been conducted since Jan 2020 and has recorded more than 4,000 domains linked with information about the coronavirus, including 3% found to be malicious and other 5% listed as “suspicious”. Checkpoint stated that most of these domains were used in phishing scenarios. For example, some tried to impersonate a website that sells medical face masks, home tests for coronavirus detection or vaccines.

Also, researchers discovered a widespread phishing campaign aiming at both individuals and organizations in Italy, one of the worst coronavirus-affected nations all over the globe, according to the report above. While most of the users get more worried about the disease, phishing emails will offer malicious documents and lure a victim to download them, suggesting a fake signature of a doctor from the World Health Organization (WHO).

Such an email urges the recipient to read the attached document in the name of necessary guidelines against the infection. Of course, these instructions are labeled as official precautions from WHO, citing the number of infected cases in the area. If you’re reading this article, please keep yourself away from unknown email addresses and never click on any malicious files regardless of what its name sounds like.