Security News > 2020 > March > Cybercriminals leveraging coronavirus outbreak to execute ransomware attacks

Cybercriminals are likely to leverage the global anxiety around the coronavirus outbreak to execute ransomware attacks against businesses, according to RiskIQ. After extensive analysis of past ransomware attacks during global epidemics and current phishing campaigns leveraging the coronavirus, threat actors will eventually begin using ransomware against victims they infect with the AZORult and Emotet varieties of malware.

Clicking on malicious links is necessary to execute the attacker's malware, which opens the door for ransomware infection.

"In the past, cybercriminals have found success using disasters and global epidemics in ransomware and other malware attacks and developed a pattern we expect will continue with the coronavirus," said Aaron Inness, Protective Intelligence Analyst at RiskIQ. "They execute layered attack campaigns, first with phishing and social engineering to infect users with malware, then taking over the entire system with ransomware or other malware."

On at least three different occasions since 2018 attackers have used AZORult to deploy ransomware.

While neither AZORult nor Emotet have been used to deploy ransomware yet, organizations should begin preparing for ransomware attacks.

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