Cybercriminals and hackers haven’t taken anytime off during the pandemic. As anxiety and panic spread over coronavirus, bad actors are taking advantage.
No One is Immune
Like in most industries, government organizations find themselves spread thin with positive cases rising and stay at home orders being extended. But now they face a new threat- and this one isn’t a biological virus, but a surge of interest from cybercriminals.
Health organizations are also seeing huge uptick in hackers. Their goal? Disrupt the health system’s response to the outbreak. The systems seeing the disruptions are not small either- places like the World Health Organization (WHO), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have all recently fallen victim to cybercriminals- and have had nearly 25k email address and passwords stolen.
Praying on the Vulnerable
As the unemployment rate across the country skyrockets, so has the number of attacks on unemployment benefits websites.
Marcus Fowler, who is a director of strategic threat at Darktrace, explained, "Attackers, whether cybercriminals or nation-state adversaries, are always looking for stress points and cybervulnerabilities. The current global disruption and implosion of what was once normal is exposing, and at times even creating, new stress points and attack opportunities.” A sad reality.
Online Classrooms Become Targets
As schools across the US closed their doors for the school year and shifted to an online classroom setting, the FBI sent out warnings explaining online education platforms were increasing as targets for cyber hackers.
Many districts are having families use their own personal devices for their kids’ online learning sessions. The issue with this is that most personal devices are not as secure as school-issued devices.
Many Universities rely on online video platforms, such as Zoom, to conduct their classes. Zoom recently came under fire for hackers gaining access to classes and ‘Zoom-bombing’ by essentially taking over and causing large disruptions. They have since put in more security checkpoints in, such as the meeting organizer having to ‘accept’ all attendees into the conference.
Take Action, Now.
Jason G. Weiss, a cyber forensics expert and retired FBI agent, explains that organizations need to, “have done everything in their power to lock down as much of the network as possible.” In healthcare, employees, some of whom are working from home, must be reminded often not to click on suspicious emails and links- as they could contain malware such as ransomware and "disruptionware”
He explains that, “Disruptionware is like ransomware on steroids. It doesn't just encrypt data for ransom; it attacks the infrastructure of a victim. Going into a hospital, if you successfully launch a distruptionware attack, you can literally shut down operating rooms, breathing machines, ventilators - and use that as a powerful tool to demand ransoms," he warns.
As we all know, due to the suddenness and vast spread of coronavirus, many employees are self-isolating and working from home. While many organizations have always provided secure access to their employees via VPN connections, the influx of the number of employees requiring secure access requires additional resources and capacity, and hackers are taking advantage.
Here at Extract, we are committed to security. We not only automate your redaction processes and reduce errors, but we ensure that our clients’ data, government or otherwise, stays behind their firewall, reducing the chance for exposure and making certain their security standards are being met.
If you’re interested in learning more about our workflow automation tools, please reach out today.
Sources:
https://www.govtech.com/security/Bad-Actors-Have-Adapted-Well-to-the-Pandemic-Crisis.html
https://www.bankinfosecurity.com/interviews/battling-cybercrime-during-covid-19-crisis-i-4655
About the Author: Taylor Genter Taylor is the Marketing Specialist at Extract with experience in data analytics, graphic design, and both digital and social media marketing. She earned her Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Marketing at the University of Wisconsin- Whitewater. Taylor enjoys analyzing people’s behaviors and attitudes to find out what motivates them, and then curating better ways to communicate with them.