Residents to remain vigilant during COVID cyber attacks

With more people online than ever before due to the repercussions of the Coronavirus comes more risk of cyber attacks.

There has been a significant increase of COVID-19 themed malicious cyber activity, meaning data and personal information is at risk.

Over 900,000 COVID-19 themed spam messages were reported by Trend Micro in the first quarter of 2020, with an increase of 260% of malicious URL hits from February to March.

Trend Micro Managing Director, Tim Falinski, said these figures are beyond any normal spike of threats.

“Whenever there is something topical happening, such as a royal wedding or tax time, we see a dramatic increase of spam messages and malicious URLs, but the growth of COVID-19 related threats that we are seeing here are off the charts,” said Mr Falinski.

Recent cyber attacks have been presented in the form of phishing emails that pretend to be from reputable organisations, such as the World Health Organisation and even Netflix, seeking to deceive recipients into visiting websites that host computer viruses or malware designed to steal their personal information.

Quadtech General Manager, Darren Mentor, said there has been an unprecedented increase in the amount of cyber attacks on businesses as they become more vulnerable due to hastily implemented IT solutions to enable their workforce to be mobile.

“Quite often third-party products with known security or privacy flaws are implemented as an interim solution.”

“Businesses are unknowingly leaving the backdoor open for cyber criminals to access business data.”

“These criminals are smart and use artificial intelligence to observe to record day to day business activity of compromised businesses,” said Mr Mentor.

To increase the appearance of legitimacy, many phishing emails are sent from addresses that closely resemble official organisations or entities, often adopting the official message format and including well-known branding and logos.

Some messages have even played on victim’s fear response, with residents in our community receiving messages saying they had been exposed to a COVID-19 patient.

Harvey Norman Commercial Toowoomba Director, Gus Romero, said these cyber criminals use our hunger for news and updates to try and profit therefore it’s vital that people are vigilant and even consider protection software.

“It’s more important than ever to think before you click, especially if it mentions COVID-19 at all.”

“Investing in reputable security software also helps keep you safe from all the latest threats,” said Mr Romero.

Mr Mentor urges businesses to avoid using software that is provided ‘free-of-cost’.

“There are often nefarious reasons why it is free in the first place.”

“There are better and more secure business products already available to you,” said Mr Mentor.

Toowoomba and Surat Basin Enterprise (TSBE) are encouraging people to be educated about online safety options.

They are working with their members such as Harvey Norman Commercial and Quadtech to highlight the risks but also provide the solutions so businesses don’t get caught out.

TSBE are pleased to see that TAFE Queensland are offering a range of courses on these important topics.

in conjunction with the Queensland Government, TAFE Queensland, is offering a range of education and training to support individuals and businesses, including micro-credential courses in data and cyber security essentials and webinars on financial resilience.

Their ‘Isolearn’ micro-credential range is completely free, delivered 100 per cent online, and are self-directed.