Last month, Check Point noted that their latest Global Threat Index for January 2020 showed cyber-criminals exploiting interest in the global Coronavirus pandemic. The aim of these cyber-criminals was to spread malicious activity, with several spam campaigns relating to the outbreak of the virus.

The most prominent Coronavirus-themed campaign targeted Japan, distributing Emotet – the leading malware type for the 4th month running. In their February report, Emotet became the second most popular malware, impacting 7% of organisations globally in February. 

Last week, Fortinet provided a similar threat analysis report for the first quarter of 2020, with FortiGuard Labs observing a significant increase in both legitimate and malicious activity surrounding the Coronavirus.

They wrote that Emotet was one of the first campaigns to have leveraged the Coronavirus scare to spread itself further, with other recent attacks including a Coronavirus-themed spear phishing attack targeting Italy.

This week, the National Cyber Security Centre has advised of the surge in phishing emails using the coronavirus as a lure. Bryan Krebs also noted this week that ‘cybercrooks have started disseminating real-time, accurate information about global infection rates tied to the Coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic in a bid to infect computers with malicious software.’

Integrity360 would like to remind our clients to remain vigilant about this developing threat and ensure that your end users are aware of the dangers around Coronavirus related emails and messages.

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