Cybercrimes in the time of Covid-19: Scamsters taking advantage of pandemic

A variety of phishing campaigns are taking advantage to distribute malware, steal credentials, and scam users

The entire world is currently worried about containing Covid-19. But at the same time, there is an entire ecosystem that is riding piggyback on this pandemic to carry out financial frauds. And these start right from creating a fake PM CARES link for donations, equated monthly instalment (EMI) moratorium frauds, and malware in real-time apps that provide details of Covid-19 patients near you. Tragically, people are falling for these because of the overall fear. For example, a 46-year-old lost more than Rs 1 lakh after downloading a real-time neighbour-hood patient detection app.

Murali Urs, country manager, India of Barracuda Networks, says: