With the number of infections and death toll due to the Coronavirus rising by the day, the world is on edge. In fact, if you saw this morning’s headlines, Hawaii is bracing for the inevitable. Unfortunately, cyber criminals are using this opportunity to spread malware to computers by blasting out spam emails camouflaged as official notifications related to the Coronavirus.
So far, the initial email wave has hit Japan as a campaign disguised as notifications that include preventive measures against Coronavirus infections. The emails are disguised to look like they are from public health centers and include attachments claim to provide preventive measures against Coronavirus infections for citizens. But of course, opening the attachment will infect your computer with the notorious Emotet malicious payload that opens a back door into your system, allowing criminals to hold your computers hostage with ransomware, monitor the activities on your network or even use your network to send out their scam emails to even more people!
The Takeaway
This scam is a bit different than your everyday attack as it preys on our fears. When people are scared, they are more likely to make poor choices. It’s good to remember that unless you are expecting an email attachment from someone you know, don’t open it. If your company has a security awareness training program in place already, be sure to review the section on how to identify phishing email attacks. They’re relatively easy to spot if you now what to look for.
If you need some guidance on setting up security awareness training for employees or have questions about this topic in general, feel free to reach out to myself or Howard, our account manager here at Cylanda for guidance – his email address is howard@cylanda.com and here’s a quick video introduction: https://youtu.be/ob9kAecU9ik
Stay safe out there.
-A
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