McAfee Labs, a Cybersecurity research division of McAfee has predicted that there could be a surge in malware and finance-related frauds during the COVID 19 Pandemic spread. A report titled “COVID-19: Malware makes Hay during a Pandemic” says that the threat will emerge mainly in the form of phishing attacks where hackers will send bulk emails filled with coronavirus themes and messages aimed at grabbing the attention of people and making them prey to digital frauds.
In the past couple of months, the American computer security company detected thousands of spam emails targeting individuals and companies in the name of Coronavirus news, face masks discounts, PPE or testing kit purchases, and virus spread alerts.
The California based company stated in its report that in the past 13 weeks of pandemic spread, there was an enormous jump in spam mails which often led to the spread of malware. Also, the security firm highlighted the fact that in the said period there was an increase in the number of bogus malware spreading websites as the number surged from 1,600 to 13,000.
COVID 19 report from McAfee revealed that the first threat identified by the R&D lab was about the Ursnif Trojan which was being propagated through spam and had the potential to steal bank credentials, record their keystrokes and track network traffic and web browser doings. And since Jan this year, the hackers who developed the Ursnif malware were seen distributing it with Corona Virus related file names trapping individuals.
Therefore, users using mobile phones and financial applications should be more cautious with the current affairs taking place in the cyber landscape. Also, they should avoid clicking on unknown links received through emails or phone messages and should guard their devices with an apt and efficient threat detection solutions such as the one offered by McAfee.
