Cyber Scammers are not on lockdown.

Tony Proctor, Principal Lecturer, Consultant and Information Security Researcher at the University of Wolverhampton considers the opportunistic manner of Cyber Criminals in light of COVID-19.

I'm sure we are all familiar with the idea of a “distraction burglary”.

Cyber Criminals frequently operate in the same opportunistic manner and it is perhaps now, that we have never been more distracted.

Many people have a heightened interest in the news, are genuinely worried about becoming ill or have a level of anxiousness about the pandemic. All of this makes us prone to making decisions without giving them the consideration that we normally might. We are also using technology more than ever to communicate.

Employees are logging on to corporate systems from their home networks that may not offer the same level of protection. Throw into this that we are approaching the end of the financial year and it creates a “perfect storm” for scammers.

So now is a time to be even more aware of the actions that we take online. In particular, be careful when clicking on links not only in emails but also in messaging (including SMS messaging and social media sites like WhatsApp and others). Of course the challenge is that we often cannot easily recognise a malicious link. But what we can say is that if you click on links that have been delivered via these means (or similar) and any of the following are requested, there is a strong likelihood that they could be malicious and require careful consideration;

Anything that

• Asks for card payment or banking details
• Request that you type in your login codes and passwords in order to be able to continue accessing a service that you use
• Ask you to login or to cancel something you have allegedly purchased (when you have no knowledge of the purchase)

If you are provided with a link in an email to log into a system, close the email and log into the site that you know via your browser if this is possible. There are also websites that you can copy and paste a link into to check the link before actually going to it. A good example is www.virustotal.com

A number of telephone call scams continue to “do the rounds”. These include; callers who claim to be from Microsoft or other technology companies claiming that they have discovered viruses on your network which they can help you to remove or saying that they are your broadband provider terminating your access because you have viewed inappropriate content. If this happens just terminate their call.

If you think you have given your details to an online scammer, contact your bank or whichever of your services that have been scammed straight away. If you have disclosed your password and you have the same or similar passwords for other websites that you use, it would be sensible to change those as soon as possible.

In terms of helping to prevent problems, the basic advice remains; make sure you have some form of internet security that is updated (including on your phone), enable firewalls and make sure you have separate backups of any important data that you have. Further government advice is available here;  

https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/email

https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/reporting-fraud-and-cyber-crime

Think before you click! Stay safe!