How coronavirus outbreak is compromising the safety of your computers

Coronavirus could be closer than you think. In fact, it could be hiding in your computer, or in the next email that you open.

We are, of course, referring to the spread of coronavirus themed malware in last few days and weeks. According to a recent research by cyber security professionals, the infection that is reaching pandemic stage in China is serving hackers well enough as an enabler for their nefarious activities.

According to the latest global threat index on cyber security by Checkpoint Securities, the world leader in internet security, cyber criminals are exploiting interest in the global epidemic to spread malicious activity, with several spam campaigns related to the outbreak of the virus.

Viruses can be transmitted in various forms, through saliva, touch or even through air. Malware is similar in the sense that it finds different vectors to penetrate. Right after news broke globally of the spread of coronavirus, cyber criminals started using the public interest in information on the disease to infect computers.

The biggest single incident happened across last month and this month in Japan was the spread of emotet, a self-propagating trojan used as a distributor of malicious malware in email attachments that looked as if they were sent by a Japanese disability welfare service provider. The emails appeared to be reporting where all the infection was spreading in Japan, prompting the unsuspecting victims to open the link/attachment for more information. When opened, emotet was downloaded onto their computers.

“In addition to email campaigns, since the coronavirus outbreak, we have observed a noticeable number of new websites registered with domain names related to the virus,” noted Venugopal N., director, security engineering, Checkpoint.