From spear phishing attacks, to malicious domains, to credential-hunting – as I predicted, COVID vaccines are the hot attack theme right now from just about every angle.
As the pandemic turns a page towards what (hopefully) is the last chapter in this very long saga, cybercriminals are keeping pace and taking advantage of the desires of those wanting to be vaccinated. According to Barracuda, spear phishing attack related to the COVID-19 vaccine grew 26% between October and January, as well as nearly 300 new potentially malicious COVID-related domain names were created, according to Checkpoint.
Checkpoint also found new instances of impersonation, such as pretending to be the CDC, in order to gain the trust of potential victims, asking them to provide their Office 365 credentials in order to access COVID-related documents.
In order to stay protected from such scams (and you should expect more of them in the coming months!), consider the following:
- Look for obvious impersonation – use of misspelled domains and unsolicited emails from well-known companies (e.g., Pfizer or Moderna) or government agencies.
- Don’t provide any details – scams asking for personal info or credentials should not be believed.
- Pay attention to language in the email body – there are almost always grammatical or spelling mistakes in these kinds of emails. If it doesn’t read like it’s professionally written, it probably isn’t from the claimed sender.
