KnowBe4 Security Awareness Training Blog

Phishing *Better* Than the Bad Guys During the Pandemic

Written by Stu Sjouwerman | Apr 14, 2020 8:19:23 PM
By Katie Brennan, KnowBe4 Product Content Director.  The COVID-19 pandemic has had cyber criminals in a phishing frenzy for months. They’ve been sending countless attacks, with the intention of exploiting your users’ fear, stress, and uncertainty. If you’ve put a pause on your security awareness training program, you’ll want to reconsider that decision ASAP. 
 
With recent reports indicating that in the month of March, coronavirus-related phishing attacks went up 667% (Source), and that every single country around the globe has now been hit with at least one phishing attack related to the pandemic (Source), it’s more important than ever to continue educating your users about the various ways cyber criminals will try to socially-engineer them. 
 
KnowBe4's Phishing Templates team has been working every day to make sure you can phish even better than the bad guys during this time. With new categories of COVID-19 Phishing Templates and Alerts, you can warn your users of the types of social engineering currently taking place, while also inoculating them against the various styles of attacks that are out in the wild.
 
We are adding (and will continue to add) templates that support the new ways business and everyday life has been altered due to the pandemic, adding more templates related to:
  • Online meeting invitations
  • Digital signatures and document sharing
  • Grocery delivery services
  • Shipping notifications
  • Telehealth/telemedicine
  • Business and social media correspondence, with references to the pandemic, coronavirus, or COVID-19
We recommend you set up an ongoing phishing campaign that runs weekly or biweekly, including the COVID-19 Phishing category with a "full random" setting, so users will get fresh templates each time the campaign runs. Here are instructions on how to do that: https://support.knowbe4.com/hc/en-us/articles/115010417528-How-to-Set-Up-an-Ongoing-Phishing-Test
 
Additional variations of COVID-19 phishing attacks will be added as soon as we see them in the wild. KnowBe4 is determined to provide you with even better phishing emails than what cyber criminals are using so you can continue to strengthen your human firewall during this pandemic.
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