Cyber hackers are taking advantage of the COVID-19 crisis to target vaccine facilities with ransomware. While health and healthcare organisations battle the virus, they’re also battling a surge in cyber security threats.
WHO is one organisation that has seen attempted cyber attacks double since the start of the virus crisis. A hacker group named DarkHotel attempted to steal employee passwords with a fake login webpage but failed.
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Elsewhere, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently fought off an attack while focusing on tackling the COVID-19 crisis.
A UK-based medical facility, Hammersmith Medicines Research, planning to test COVID-19 vaccines, was attacked by a ransomware group that had promised not to home in on medical bodies during the pandemic.
The hackers exflitatred patient records and published them on the dark web, demining ransom payment. The centre repelled the attack without paying a ransom but private documents were leaked.
A cloud-based email-security firm GreatHorn revealed analysis that said there has been a 15-fold growth in COVID-19-related email threats over the past ten weeks.
In Europe, in early March, the Brno University Hospital, which has one of the largest COVID-19 testing facilities in the Czech Republic, had to force a tech shutdown during the crisis because of a cyber attack.
Source: Reuters
Image credit: Pixabay
