How Cyber criminals active in Coronavirus pandemic

Last updated on July 26th, 2020 at 10:51 am

Amidst the threat of Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic around the world, the figure of infected people increasing exponentially and it has already crossed 7 lakh. Many countries have declared complete lockdown and citizens have restricted their movement in their house only but cybercriminals are more active and stealing money from innocent citizens.

In one incident reported recently, victim was so feared and conscious about coronavirus news that he searched and found one app which attracted him. The app claimed it would make victim’s phone vibrate if it detected a coronavirus positive patient nearby. So victim downloaded the app and it sent an OTP to activate the app, which he entered.

After activating the app, cyber-criminal stole all the information from his phone and conducted financial transactions from his bank account. Actually victim unknowingly installed a remote monitoring app along with the suspicious app. The criminal monitored his activity on his phone and stole all his data and conducted bank transactions.

Similarly in other incidents, the victim received a message mentioning “….. They have a tie-up with reputed Doctors in the country. You can get their full report and tips to keep yourself safe from getting infected by Coronavirus. To know full report, click the following link”. They also sent one short link in the message and as soon as the victim clicked the link, criminals stole all the data from the victim’s phone and conduct financial transactions.

In this crisis time, please rely only on authenticated messages, which never contain any link, only plain text messages. Don’t panic and get yourself updated.