The coronavirus spreading is boosted up in India for the past few days as the lockdown rules and regulations are relaxed. The COVID-19 hospitals are getting busier and the tests are also increased. Taking advantage of this situation, a massive phishing attack may happen and it already started from 21st June as per the expectation.
The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) already warned about this threat. As per them, the attacker may contact both individuals and business organizations of every level using the name of any government organization for serving COVID-19 related services.
CERT-In stated, “The phishing campaign is expected to use malicious emails under the pretext of local authorities in charge of dispensing government-funded Covid-19 support initiatives. Such emails are designed to drive recipients towards fake websites where they are deceived into downloading malicious files or entering personal and financial information,”
The attackers may offer free COVID-19 testing with the exchange of your personal data including baking information that can be used for theft later. The expected targeted areas are Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Ahmedabad. The email ids they used supposed to be like the official government domains [ for example: ncov2019@gov.in ]. Besides, it is estimated that the criminals already have mail ids of around 20 lack common peoples.
Guidelines:
The government listed some guidelines to stay safe from the attackers.
- Be aware of the spelling mistakes or irregularities in the mails you received
- Avoid providing personal details, especially banking details
- Don’t click to the links or attachments inside unknown mails
- For getting access of any kind of offers or details, browse the official website manually or use the app if any
- Stay away from some kind of reward or prize offerings
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