Cyber Threats In The World
KEY COVID-19 CYBERTHREATS
Based on the comprehensive analysis of
data received from member countries,
private partners and the CFC, the following
cyberthreats have been identifed as main
threats in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fig. 2 Distribution of the key COVID-19
inficted cyberthreats based on
member countries’ feedback
Online Fraud and Phishing
Around two-thirds of member countries who
responded to the survey reported a
signifcant use of COVID-19 themes for
phishing and online fraud since the outbreak.
Since January 2020, one of INTERPOL’s
private partners, Trend Micro, detected 907,000 messages linked to COVID-192. Taking
advantage of the economic downturn and
people’s anxiety during the pandemic,
cybercriminals have enhanced their social
engineering tactics by using COVID-19 as a
basis in their attacks. Specifcally, many
existing organized crime groups have
changed their tactics to exploit pandemic
updates and supply shortages as well as
advertising fake medications, fscal packages,
and emergency benefts.
A large proportion of incidents reported to
law enforcement authorities involved Malicious domains
22%
Malware/Ransomware
36%
Phishing/
Scam/Fraud
59%
Fake
news14%