Cyber criminals are taking advantage of the coronavirus pandemic
Lisa Vogel studied departmental journalism with a focus on medicine and biosciences at Ansbach University and deepened her journalistic knowledge in the master's degree in multimedia information and communication. This was followed by a traineeship in the editorial team. Since September 2020 she has been writing as a freelance journalist for
More posts by Lisa Vogel All content is checked by medical journalists.According to an investigation by experts, cyber criminals are increasingly using the corona crisis for fraud. Since the beginning of the year, tens of thousands of problematic websites related to the pandemic have been registered, according to a study by cybersecurity company Palo Alto Networks.
From January 1 to March 31, the experts identified a total of 116,357 new domain names in connection with the coronavirus. Of these, 2022 were classified as "malicious", and another 40 261 as "high-risk".
Phishing emails and fake websites
The company's threat detection team, known as "Unit 42", discovered various campaigns: there were phishing attacks via emails with links to fake pages that were supposed to skim access data or so-called skimmers that were supposed to tap into credit card information. In addition, sites also tried directly to infect users' computers.
Offers are "too good to be true"
The experts also found fraudulent web shops that apparently offered particularly popular items such as face masks or disinfectants very cheaply. In this context, Palo Alto Networks warns against offers that are "too good to be true". Other problematic sites were illegal pharmacies or attempts to frighten customers and urge them to buy e-books related to Corona or other products.
NRW had to stop the emergency aid program
The Federal Office for Information Security and the European Police Authority Europol have also warned of an increase in cybercrime in the Corona crisis. North Rhine-Westphalia even had to temporarily stop its emergency aid program for companies after attempted fraud with fake websites became known. (lv / dpa)
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