Phishing attacks rise by 667 pct in India! Don't lose your money, know what fraudsters are doing

The coronavirus crisis has led to a lot of confusion among people. Information is being twisted by malicious elements to spread panic among people and loot their money. There has been an increase of 667 per cent in phishing attacks in India in the month of March itself, Barracuda Networks has reported. Barracuda researchers have seen three main types of phishing attacks using coronavirus COVID-19 themes — scamming, brand impersonation, and business email compromise.

“Barracuda researchers have seen a steady increase in the number of coronavirus COVID-19-related spear-phishing attacks since January, but they have observed a recent spike in this type of attack, up 667-percent since the end of February. Between March 1 and March 23, Barracuda Sentinel has detected 467,825 spear-phishing email attacks, and 9,116 of those detections were related to COVID-19, representing about 2 percent of attacks,” Murali Urs, Country Manager, India of Barracuda Networks said.

He added that a total of 1,188 coronavirus-related spear-phishing attacks were detected in February, and just 137 were detected in January.

What are fraudsters doing?

Murali explained that a variety of phishing campaigns are taking advantage of the heightened focus on COVID-19 to distribute malware, steal credentials, and scam users out of money. These attacks are pulled off by distracting users to capitalize on the fear and uncertainty of their intended victims.

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“As shutdown is implemented across the world because of Coronavirus, organizations have had to quickly adapt to a new way of doing business. For remote workers who are using corporate-owned laptops, secure internet access is key. This is especially important to consider as we see a spike in malicious websites disguised as helpful COVID-19 information resources,” he said. 

How to stay safe?

Stay away from suspicious emails and messages. Murali explained that employees should also avoid inappropriate web browsing on corporate devices as it can also result in company-wide consequences. 

“When individuals are using their devices at home, IT doesn’t have the same visibility or control over web activity that they would if everyone was in the office. Remote users can violate technology usage compliance by browsing the web with no access restrictions, resulting in lost productivity and potential legal implications,” he said.