Criminals Have Ramped Up Covid-19 Related Attacks

A growing number of cyber criminals and other malicious groups online are exploiting the COVID-19 outbreak for their own personal gain, security officials in the UK are reporting. Over 25% of the cyber attacks that the UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) responded to were Covid-related, it says in its most recent annual report.  

The Report covers the period from September 2019 to August 2020, so the pandemic occupied an even higher proportion of the agency's efforts after the first lockdown began. In total there were 723 incidents of all kinds, marking close to a 10% rise on the previous period. Of those, 194 were Covid-related.

Some of the incidents related to countering nation-state attacks, but most were criminal in nature. The NCSC says that it countered 15,354 campaigns that had used coronavirus themes as a "lure" to fool people into clicking on a link or opening an attachment containing malicious software. Some involved fake shops selling PPE (personal protective equipment), test kits and even vaccines.

Vaccine Hackers: Protecting the NHS and health-related research has been a priority, the report said. In July, the UK accused Russia of trying to steal vaccine-related information through cyber-espionage. And officials said they had continued to see an "ongoing threat" of states targeting the vaccine research-and-delivery programme. The NCSC said it had scanned more than one million NHS IP (internet protocol) addresses to look for vulnerabilities, and had shared 51,000 indicators of compromise. 

It has also carried out "threat hunting" to look for security risks on connected devices, and worked on the security of the NHS Covid-19 contact-tracing app.

Ransomware Attacks: The NCSC also warned ransomware attacks had become more common.
Ransomware locks people out of their computers and demands victims make a blackmail payment to restore access - and even then it is not always granted. The NCSC said it had handled more than three times as many ransomware incidents as in the previous year. These included an attack against Redcar and Cleveland Council which, the officials said, had "caused considerable damage and disruption". 

The report added the NCSC had observed a growing trend for such attacks to be more targeted and aggressive than previously.

Rather than just locking people out of access to their data until a ransom was paid, attackers often warned they would embarrass victims if they refused to comply.

Jeremy Fleming, the Director General of NCSC's parent, the GCHQ spy agency, said that NCSC' expertise had been “invaluable” in countering high levels of malicious state and criminal activity, and protecting against those who had tried to exploit the pandemic.

NCSC:       GovUK:     CISO Mag:     BBC:      Interpol:

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