At first, It may not make sense that the Coronavirus/COVID-19 could be linked to malicious software. However, according to security researcher Brian Krebs the malware distributors “are disseminating real-time, accurate information about global infection rates tied to the Coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic in a bid to infect computers with malicious software.”
What does this mean for you? Your computer could be susceptible to contracting malicious password-stealing malware. How you ask? Just by checking an interactive dashboard of the Coronavirus infections and deaths produced by Johns Hopkins University.
Late last month, a member of several Russian language cybercrime forums began selling a digital Coronavirus infection kit that uses the Hopkins interactive map as part of a Java-based malware deployment scheme.
The kit “loads [a] fully working online map of Corona Virus infected areas and other data. The map is resizable, interactive, and has real time data from the World Health Organization and other sources. Users will think that PreLoader is actually a map, so they will open it and will spread it to their friends and it goes viral.”
At this point, we’re not sure how many computers have been infected, but earlier this week security experts began warning of new malicious websites using interactive versions of the same map to distract visitors while the sites tried to foist the password-stealing AZORult malware.
In this uncertain time, please take extra precaution before downloading new software onto your computer and contact us immediately if you think you have become a victim of cybercrime.
