Google has warned that the total number of state-sponsored phishing campaigns and hacking attacks has reached a massive spike amidst the COVID-19 scenario. According to Google, the Threat Analysis group of the company keeps track of over 270 targeted or Government-backed attacker groups from over 50 countries every day, reports The Windows Club. The purpose of the Google TAG is to accurately identify and prevent organized phishing campaigns, hacking attempts including zero-day vulnerabilities.
The search-engine giant revealed that the company has issued 1755 warnings to users whose accounts were compromised in April 2020. Commenting on the development, Shane Huntley, Director of Google’s Threat Analysis Group disclosed that the company continues to see attacks from groups such as Charming Kitten on medical and healthcare professionals in addition to WHO employees. As part of the phishing, users receive emails that look identical to the above groups.
In April 2020, the company saw more than 18 million malware and phishing attempts on a daily basis. The report is based on the analytics of two consecutive weeks. Google also noticed more than 240 million COVID-19 related SPAM messages. The company identified new activity campaign from the hack-for-hire firms located in India. These small firms have been involved in the creation of Gmail accounts impersonating the WHO. Their main target was business leaders in financial services, consulting, healthcare companies, and corporations in the US, Canada, Bahrain, UK, Cyprus, Slovenia, and India.
Fake notifications
The main intention of the fraudulent phishing campaigns is to trick and force users to signup for fake notifications from the WHO. The notification will be structured in such a way that you will receive updates to COVID-19 related announcements. The campaigns take you to the attacker-hosted websites, which will look identical to the official WHO website.
The fake phishing websites prompt users to verify credentials by providing Google account credentials. The system could potentially compromise multiple accounts as soon as you provide Google credentials. You are at great risk if you make use of the same passwords for multiple Gmail accounts, apps, and services.
Template phishing on the rise
According to industry analysts, researchers have noticed a sudden spike in the deployment of phishing website templates, which resembles NGOs such as Internal Revenue Service, WHO among others. Google revealed that the WHO-centric phishing campaign is on a rise after the COVID-19 outbreak.
To save yourselves from Phishing, you should not click on any untrusted link received via email. You should verify the source before clicking the link. You should note that financial institutions will never send emails asking you to provide credentials to access a specific resource. You should always navigate to the official website of the bank to perform any transaction. The only way to prevent damages and loss of money/credentials is to avoid clicking on any link related to banks and other organizations via email.
