The COVID-19 pandemic created a worldwide panic. To cyber criminals, this presents an opportunity to steal money, data, and identities. Scammers can manipulate people’s emotions to get them to act against their interests.
What COVID-19 themes do scammers use to hook their victims?
- Company HR communications
- Online meeting platforms
- Stimulus checks
- Airline carrier refunds
- Tracking maps
- Vaccines
- Investment opportunities
- Purchasing scarce products
- Home tests
- Miracle cures
- Charity donations
- Tech support scams
- Fake Coronavirus computer anti-virus programs
- Healthcare organization alerts. Particularly, if they come from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO)
- Doctors’ advice
- Work-from-home job opportunities
How do scammers attack their victims?
- Phishing
- Trojans
- Spyware
- Ransomware
- Business email compromise
- Phone scams
- Fraud websites and social media accounts
- Meeting hijacking
How can you avoid COVID-19 scams?
- Keep your devices updated, scanned, and backed up
- Follow work-at-home network security tips here
- Be cautious with COVID-19/Coronavirus-themed communications
- Watch out for phishing warning signs including
- Claims to be an official person or organization
- Generic greetings, misspellings, and blurred logos
- Unsolicited links and attachments
- Requests for personal information and large sums of money
- Use multi-factor authentication on email and sensitive online accounts
- Refuse too-good-to-be-true offers. They usually have offers for scarce products and services, a limited time to respond, and an urgent call to action.
- Use reputable websites for the latest COVID-19 information including the CDC and WHO.
- Review this blog for protecting your online meetings
- If you suspect someone defrauded you, file a police report and send a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
How can SwiftTech help?
If you have any questions about COVID-19 scams, you can contact us at info@swifttechsolutions.com or 877-794-3811. Also, if you would like extra protection for your IT systems, you can ask us about our subscription-based cloud service called Security as a Service. It includes email security, web security, enterprise anti-virus/anti-malware protection, ransomware protection, intrusion prevention, and security monitoring. You can check out this page here for more details.