{"id":18888,"date":"2020-04-07T11:55:56","date_gmt":"2020-04-07T11:55:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/saga.rs\/cybercrime-and-covid-19\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T08:13:51","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T08:13:51","slug":"cybercrime-and-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/saga.rs\/en\/blog-en\/cybercrime-and-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Cybercrime and Covid-19"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”9180″ img_size=”large” alignment=”center” css=””][vc_column_text]With the appearance of the SARS-COV2 virus, which causes Covid-19 disease, many work activities have been forced to transfer online. We spend significantly more time on computers, mobile devices using the Internet first for business purposes, but also communication, shopping, and to inform on all relevant topics. Given all these activities, we also need to take certain actions to best protect our computers, especially when we are connected to a company network.<\/p>\n

As Covid-19 is currently the number one topic in the world, hackers are making extensive use of the situation, leading to a significant increase in cybercrime. Many hackers use the Covid-19 situation to get users to install a variety of malicious software, all to retrieve sensitive user data, passwords, monitoring user activity on the system and the like.<\/p>\n

We have gathered information from several sources, how hackers are most likely to act and what are the cybercrime activities that we need to pay attention to.<\/p>\n

The name Covid-19 is especially used for Spam, Malware files and Malicious domains.<\/p>\n

RiskIQ<\/a>\u00a0analyzed the spam box feed for the period March 30th<\/sup>\u2013 March 31st<\/sup>\u00a02020. During this period, 217.169 spam emails containing either \u201ccorona\u201d or \u201ccovid\u201d in the subject line were analyzed.\u00a0<\/em>[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”9182″ img_size=”large” alignment=”center” css=””][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

Map of threaths using COVID-19<\/a><\/p>\n

[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=””]There are different ways that hackers use to put their actions into action, just some of them are:<\/p>\n

Phishing campaigns<\/strong>\u00a0and malware distribution by seemingly genuine websites or documents that provide information or advice on COVID-19 are used to infect computers and download user credentials. (SOURCE<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Spam\u00a0\u2013\u00a0<\/strong>Special attention should be paid to the emails we receive from a variety of sources, as hackers most commonly use this type of attack on a user\u2019s computer, using the name Covid-19 to induce the user to open mail or download a brochure from the mail.[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”9183″ img_size=”large” alignment=”center” css=””][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

Early COVID-19 related malicious email<\/a><\/p>\n

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Malicious websites<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 Also, hackers use and market a variety of malicious websites that users will recklessly click and compromise their computer to inform. Through botnet, threat actors can launch DDoS attacks, download files from your computer, execute scripts, capture screenshots, steal bitcoin wallets, and collect browser cookies and passwords.<\/p>\n

Examples of such sites are the antivirus-covid19 [.]site and corona-antivirus [.]com, which promote an application that supposedly protects the user from the Covid-19 virus, whereby when a user installs the application, his system attacks BlackNET Rat malware. (SOURCE<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Ransomware\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013 The attack that was alleged to have caused the ransomware has hit the University Hospital Brno in the Czech Republic, a test center for COVID-19. The hospital\u2019s computer systems were shut down due to an attack, delaying the release of COVID-19 test results. (SOURCE<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Fraud\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013 placement of the products that are necessary for the event of a pandemic, such as masks, disinfectants or other medical preparations, without ever physically getting the products ordered, all to raise money for customers. (SOURCE<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Placing false information<\/strong>\u00a0is also a form of cybercrime aimed at creating panic in people. (SOURCE<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Types of malicious URLs<\/a><\/p>\n

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Some of\u00a0examples of malware<\/a>\u00a0are:<\/p>\n