Beware of Economic Stimulus Themed Scams
Beware of Economic Stimulus Themed Scams
The Department of Homeland Security has issued a warning that Cybercriminals Almost Certainly Will Continue to Target US Public Using Economic Relief Themes and Scams.
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Cybercriminals as of at least 30 March 2020 have been targeting individuals waiting for COVID-19 government relief payments with phishing e-mails containing malicious attachments, according to a US cybersecurity company. The e-mails instruct victims to open and fill out the attached document to receive compensation for having to stay home due to COVID-19. The malware is a modular banking Trojan that was first observed in 2015 targeting major financial institutions in the United Kingdom, Brazil, Australia, and North America, according to the same source.
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The Department of Justice (DOJ) on 21 March 2020 filed its first enforcement action against COVID-19 fraud, according to a DOJ press release. The fraud scheme involved a website claiming to offer access to World Health Organization vaccine kits for a shipping charge, which consumers would pay for by entering their credit card information on the website, according to the same report.
Visit https://www.odu.edu/cybersecurity and be aware of a number of Safe Computing Practices on our information security awareness pages.
J. Douglas Streit, CISSP
CISO & Executive Director
IT Security and Planning
Old Dominion University
Posted By: John Streit
Date: Thu Apr 16 07:47:56 EDT 2020