Ride the Lightning

Employers: It is MANDATORY to Warn Employees About COVID-19 Phishing Scams

March 23, 2020

It is "open season" for cybercriminals as more and more employees are working from home. Working remotely has produced all kinds of security vulnerabilities (I'll save that for another post) and the bad guys are exploiting them with feverish glee.

Warn your employees at home to be especially careful of opening any communications purporting to be about the coronavirus – everyone and his brother is tempted to open up something that has a striking headline, whether is "How To Guarantee You Won't Get the Coronavirus", "Scientists Discover a Cure for the Coronavirus", or thousands more.

Even we are amazed at some of the shenanigans. As reported by Brian Krebs, in one scheme, an interactive dashboard of coronavirus infections and deaths produced by Johns Hopkins University is being used in malicious Web sites (and possibly spam emails) to spread password-stealing malware. It costs all of $200 to buy a ready-made kit for doing this.

"It loads [a] fully working online map of Corona Virus infected areas and other data," the seller explains. "Map is resizable, interactive, and has real time data from World Health Organization and other sources. Users will think that PreLoader is actually a map, so they will open it and will spread it to their friends and it goes viral!"

Terrific, huh? So, keep warning your employees about suspicious emails with links or attachments as well as social media posts. It is vital that all employees keep their guard up as they work from home.

Sharon D. Nelson, Esq., President, Sensei Enterprises, Inc.
3975 University Drive, Suite 225|Fairfax, VA 22030
Email: Phone: 703-359-0700
Digital Forensics/Cybersecurity/Information Technology
https://senseient.com
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