Cybercriminals have hit both citizens and businesses of the world with COVID-19 themed phishing emails and also using social media and text messages (Smishing) for their dirty work.

Due to these actions of hackers, global cybersecurity centres, mobile networks and

banks have prompted warnings, and the COVID-19 hit governments have decided to undergo a crackdown against insensitive scammers and hackers.

The hackers are using a technique called Smishing in which they send a text message to a person pretending that the government has sent the message. Scammers gain receiver’s interest and their financial details to use their personal information against them.

The hackers are using the international domain name and different font characters so that they can hide the actual address of the malicious website that is linked to Smishing messages.

The threat intelligence report in March has shown that a large scale of hackers has moved forward in exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic for their gains.

Check Point Global Threat Index has reported that there is a rise in the domain names, which are related to Coronavirus or COVID-19, and more than 50% of these domains are malicious.

The Proof Point also reported that 80% of the threat landscape is using Coronavirus themes in some way.

There has been a series of direct attacks toward the World Health Organization (WHO) from DNS hijacking to spread malicious COVID-19 software to even spread malware by dodging an antivirus.

Another news reported that nation-backed hackers are targeting universities and other research centres to lay their hands on sensitive Coronavirus-related research information.

ZOOM and similar video-conferencing apps have gained and lost their popularity rapidly – all of this due to the hackers that lurk in databases to find a vulnerability, steal sensitive data and sell it for peanuts on the dark web.

Times are tough for stay-at-home workers, business organizations, digital brands, software and service providers alike as hackers are not letting go of the slightest chance to use the COVID-19 situation against innocent citizens.