Google said it saw 18 million daily malware and phishing emails related to COVID-19 last week.
Google has also thrown some light on the threat actors and their rigorous attempts of launching various cyber attacks. Google reported of receiving 240 million spam emails daily which are all related to the pandemic. The phishing attacks and scams that Google is seeing daily use both fear and financial incentives to create urgency to try to prompt users to respond.
The scams and all other phishing emails have reference to WHO or any other health organization to make the target easily believe the authenticity of the email. The phishing emails have malicious links, executable files, and backdoor for various type of cyber attacks.
Sometimes scamsters attempt to capitalise on government stimulus packages and imitate government institutions to phish small businesses, Google said. Google has also reported that many of this malware are old existing campaigns which are updated to get linked to COVID-19 pandemic.
Google has also asked to accelerate the implementation of DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance). DMARC makes it harder for bad actors to impersonate the who.int domain, thereby preventing malicious emails from reaching the recipient’s inbox, while making sure legitimate communication gets through.
Google said people should avoid downloading files that they do not recognize. They can use Gmail’s built-in document preview. It is also recommended to check the integrity of URLs before providing login credentials or clicking a link. Fake URLs generally imitate real URLs and include additional words or domains, Google said.
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