Security News > 2020 > December > How to Defend Against Malware, Phishing, and Scams During COVID-19 Crisis
As if the exponential rise in phishing scams and malware attacks in the last five years wasn't enough, the COVID-19 crisis has worsened it further.
Many scammers have rolled out campaigns offering COVID-19 vaccines, free medical tests and testing kits, tax rebates for donation to pandemic relief funds, information on COVID-19 cases, and new job opportunities due to the economic downturn.
In April 2020, swindlers impersonated the World Health Organization to send e-mails to the public seeking donations to a fictitious COVID-19 fund.
Several UK citizens received an e-mail from a fake government ID telling them to claim a tax refund to protect against the COVID-19 crisis.
Most phishing e-mails appear so legitimate that your employees are likely to open the attachment or embedded link without verifying the sender's e-mail id or the information in the message's body.