Millions Of Indians Could Soon Face Cyber Attacks Via E-mails About COVID-19, CERT-In Warns
Even as the country grapples with the outbreak of COVID-19, authorities have warned that the pandemic could be used by cybercriminals to target individuals and businesses, taking advantage of the general confusion and paranoia.
India's cyber security nodal agency, CERT-In has issued an advisory warning that the potential phishing attacks could impersonate government agencies, departments and trade bodies that have been tasked to oversee disbursement of government fiscal aid.?
The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) under the Information Technology Ministry works to protect Indians from cyber threats.?
The phishing campaign is expected to start on June 21, 2020 with cyber attackers using email IDs such as "ncov2019@gov.in", it added.The attackers are expected to send malicious emails under the pretext of local authorities that are in charge of dispensing government-funded COVID-19 support initiatives.?
"The phishing campaign is expected to use malicious emails under the pretext of local authorities in charge of dispensing government-funded COVID-19 support initiatives. Such emails are designed to drive recipients towards fake websites where they are deceived into downloading malicious files or entering personal and financial information," CERT-In said in an advisory.?
The advisory noted that the "malicious actors" are claiming to have 2 million individual/citizen email IDs and are planning to send email with the subject line: free Covid-19 testing for all residents of Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai and Ahmedabad in a bid to coax users to disclose personal information."It has been reported that these malicious actors are planning to spoof or create fake email IDs impersonating various authorities," it cautioned."The email ID expected to be used for the phishing campaign towards Indian individuals and businesses is expected to be from email such as 'ncov2019@gov.in'".?
CERT-In, in its advisory, outlined a list of steps for users to protect themselves, including not opening attachments in unsolicited emails even if it comes from people in the contact list.It said they shouldn't click on URLs in an unsolicited email, even if the link seems benign.Any unusual activity or attack should be reported immediately at incident@cert-in.org.in with logs and email headers for analysis of the attacks and for taking action.
?It has asked users to encrypt and protect their sensitive document to avoid potential leakage.It also urged people to use anti-virus tools, firewalls and filtering services and asked them to report any unusual activity or attack immediately to CERT-In.? ??
