While the entire world is reeling over Coronavirus pandemic, some notorious hacker groups are leveraging the widespread chaos and attacking healthcare organizations and hospitals.
In the past month, several ransomware operators targeted WHO and US Health Department websites to steal patients’ data. These attackers also spammed users and tried to trick them into providing access to their personal data by sending messages from email IDs impersonating WHO and other organizations.
Now, to fight the increasing Coronavirus-related hacks, security researchers and experts from Okta, Microsoft, DefCon, etc. have teamed up to form the “COVID-19 Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) League.”
The league has cybersecurity experts proficient in detecting, neutralizing, and mitigating cyber threats. The aim is to help hospitals and healthcare centers experiencing cyber attacks in these testing times.
There are 4 four individuals who form the core team of the group – Ohad Zaidenberg from popular Israeli firm ClearSky Security, Marc Rogers, VP of security at Okta and head of security operations at DefCon, and Chris Mills and Nate Warfield from the cybersecurity unit of Microsoft.
However, the mission of the COVID-19 CTI group is broader than simply protecting the healthcare industry. The league will cater to several entities irrespective of the industry and will put in efforts to protect them from hackers trying to take advantage of Coronavirus pandemic.
According to Mark Rogers, “Attackers are using a mixture of old, reskinned, and relatively new malware to attack users during the COVID-19 pandemic. Their diversity indicates a global reach and a wide variety of campaigns. In essence, we are looking at a cybercrime gold rush.”
The cooperation and the efforts of the security community come at a time when ransomware operators are trying to inflict damage to the already overwhelmed healthcare industry.
