Interpol is warning about possible imminent ransomware attacks because of the recent pandemic.
At this time, cyber-criminal agencies might claim themselves as governmental organizations that provide information about the novel pandemic and subsequently can cause harm.
Interpol further said that hospitals might be the major target of these attacks. These days, the hospital staff is working non-stop to save the lives of the patients of Coronavirus and it can be severely dangerous if the hospitals are attacked.
Cybercriminals' Possible Attack Method
As today, online data, especially regarding COVID-19, is being traced very deeply and, therefore, the attackers might come with other strategies such as sending ransomware as an attachment in emails.
Possibly they will not distribute the ransomware directly but they might ask you to provide an email address. So, in return, you may get ransomware in your e-mail box as an attachment or a hard-coded link which will trick you download that ransomware directly into your PC.
Despite, the advancement in the computer security, these attacker might still be able to develop ransomware of complex definitions.This means it will not be an easy task to launch a decryptor instantly.
Although cyber-criminal groups announced that they will not target any hospitals and other health organizations, it is also worth noticing that in the biggest ransomware attacks in recent history such as WannaCry ransomware targeted many hospitals and even British national health service (NHS) institute was not an exception.
Therefore, hospitals and other health service organizations must never be careless as the attackers usually get the advantage of such severe situations.
Despite, the declaration by the cybercriminal group to not target any health organization, it is more likely that hospital and health will be the major target of these attacks.
According to the Computer Weekly report Jürgen Stock, secretary-general of Interpol told in the interview
As hospitals and medical organizations around the world are working non-stop to preserve the wellbeing of individuals stricken with the coronavirus, they have become targets for ruthless cybercriminals who are looking to make a profit at the expense of sick patients.
Acronis (software company) CEO, Serguei Beloussov said that many new requests on the dark web regarding the development of new crypto miners and new ransomware definitions have been observed as people are already protected against the previous ransomware definitions.
He also said
All criminals will now realize that they have to be part of cybercrime and that means that cybercrime, which wasn’t industrialized before the current situation, will be institutionalized after this is over
Steps Taken by Interpol
Interpol is very deeply working with other security companies to collect data to stop these possible cyber threats.
Interpol is analyzing the domains about COVID-19 and collecting suspicious data which can trick people to become the victim of ransomware.
Interpol has also suggested the steps to follow the steps to prevent ransomware attacks such as updating software and operating systems, avoiding to open any suspicious attachment or link in the email inbox and making backups of your important data regularly, etc.