INTERPOL warns of increase in rate of cyber crimes amid COVID-19 pandemic

International Police body INTERPOL on August 4 said in a statement that there was an alarming increase in the rate of cybercrimes during the coronavirus pandemic. The cyberattacks shifted to small businesses major corporations, governments, and critical infrastructure from individuals as businesses employed remote systems and networks for employees to work from home. Criminals are focused to steal data, generate profits, and cause disruption according to INTERPOL’s analysis.  

“In one four-month period (January to April) some 907,000 spam messages, 737 incidents related to the malware and 48,000 malicious URLs – all related to COVID-19 – were detected by one of INTERPOL’s private sector partners,” the police body said in a statement. With an increase in the online presence across the globe, there was also an increased security threat to the web as the cyber defenses for many businesses were “not up to date”, the police body warned. As per INTERPOL's assessment, 907,000 spam messages, 737 incidents related to the malware, and 48,000 malicious URLs related to COVID-19 were detected by the private sector partners within the period of 4 months, from January to April.  

Cybercriminals are developing and boosting their attacks at an alarming pace, exploiting the fear and uncertainty caused by the unstable social and economic situation created by COVID-19—Jürgen Stock, INTERPOL Secretary General said in a statement.  

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According to INTERPOL’S chief, there was an imminent need for closer public-private sector cooperation to tackle the “cyber health” amid the ongoing pandemic. INTERPOL’S cybercrime landscape assessment revealed Online Scams and Phishing, Disruptive Malware (Ransomware and DDoS), Data Harvesting Malware, Malicious Domains, and Misinformation as some of the major cyber threats online. The report projected “a further increase in cybercrime in the near future.” INTERPOL predicted that the vulnerabilities related to work-from-home and the potential for financial benefit will witness more cybercriminals that will develop advanced and sophisticated modi operandi in order to compromise the security.  

Twitter verified accounts hack

Last month, in the biggest cyberattacks ever known, Twitter accounts of former President Barack Obama, presidential candidate Joe Biden, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Twitter accounts of Apple, Uber, Square’s CashApp and many more were all hacked by the bitcoin scammers Hackers launched spams from Obama as well as Biden’s account which contained a bitcoin wallet address that asked the Twitter users to transfer cryptocurrency that "will be sent back doubled." A 17-year-old Florida resident, suspected as the ‘mastermind’ behind the recent Twitter cyberattack, was reportedly charged with 30 felony counts in the US in relation to the hacks. 

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