New Information has come to our attention concerning cyber theives and COVID-19. We want to take this opportunity to share some tips on how you can protect yourselves during this vulnerable time. This article has been provided by The Hartford.
New phishing attempts
Cyber thieves are using the recent developments surrounding the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) as an opportunity to send phishing emails and spread malware attacks. Most recently, there have been phishing emails impersonating the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the World Health Organization (WHO) and other health authorities. An example is a phishing email that specifically tricks users into downloading and running a malicious application that, while showing a coronavirus map loaded from a legitimate online source, in the background is collecting credit card numbers, login credentials, and various other sensitive information.
Consideration:
Look for these red flags and follow these steps if you suspect an email or phone call is a potential phishing attempt:
- Unsolicited communications, especially from organizations or companies with whom you have no relationship.
- Request for transactions such as direct deposit or electronic funds transfer.
- Request for your username and/or password, or other personal details such as banking information or log in credentials.
- Links that don't match: roll your cursor over the link and see if the link that pops up is consistent with the email address and message content. If not, don't click.
- Always independently verify that the source of emails or phone calls requesting information or providing wire transfer instructions is legitimate and that people are who they say they are.
The information above has been provided by The Hartford. For more details, please visit https://www.thehartford.com/resources/covid-19/cyber-risk?fbclid=IwAR0sZM1E45NNdvGaLg4rAYEu6nmn8NSUrMUIVL2HULuEqL-fI8mJ3oPmUAg.