Today’s post is to create more awareness around the bad actors that are taking advantage of our current global situation. It’s disappointing, but many agencies that monitor this type of activity have reported an uptick as much as 1000% in hacker activity.
Here are a few tips:
- Be extra diligent that the email you receive is from a legitimate source. A quick way to check this is to simply hover over the sender’s name to reveal the email address it was sent from. If the email address is in conflict with the name, delete.
- Check your quarantine and/or quarantine emails regularly, as the uptick in phishing activity has filtering systems maxed out worldwide. This extra burden on filtering systems may cause the filters not to behave normally.
- Beware of all COVID-19 email updates, period. Unless you specifically subscribed to an organization to receive updates, these should be considered dangerous. This includes emails with “Breaking News” headlines.
- Do not click on or download any “COVID-19 outbreak maps” that are not from a legitimate news source. Experts are reporting that even some maps on legitimate sites like CNN or Yahoo have been found to contain ransomware and other payloads.
- Be aware of changes in your routine/habits while working from home. What I mean by this is that many people are very cautious when answering emails and working from their workstation, but less purposeful when using mobile devices, for example. Bad actors are counting on you not paying as close of attention on tiny screens, or the habit of swiping left/right almost subconsciously.
- Last but not least, bad actors are targeting children sites with schools being closed—this ranges from “free movie streaming services,” to education sites that are encouraged while children are at home. Please be very intentional about the content kids are consuming and the sites that they are visiting, as they are a target.
Our team is here to help! We’re in this together.