Security News > 2020 > March > Revamped HawkEye Keylogger Swoops in on Coronavirus Fears
While the HawkEye keylogger has been in continuous development since 2013, it did see an ownership change in December 2018 and has been particularly resurgent since then.
"The current developer of the HawkEye Reborn keylogger/stealer is continuously adding support for different applications and software platforms to facilitate the theft of sensitive information and account credentials," researchers told Threatpost last year.
As for capitalizing on coronavirus fears to lure victims in, the tactic is a snowballing social-engineering tactic that researchers are seeing more and more as the pandemic continues to spread. Attackers continue to leverage coronavirus-themed cyberattacks - including malware attacks, booby-trapped URLs, credential-stuffing scams and even APT activity.
"Unfortunately with the pandemic of the coronavirus happening, it only entices the criminals to increase their social engineering and phishing email scams and target people's fear with false information," said James McQuiggan, security awareness advocate at KnowBe4.
"The criminals rely on people's fears for information and lure them to open attachments or click the links to load malware onto their systems to have their systems compromised."