Security News > 2021 > March > US seizes more domains used in COVID-19 vaccine phishing attacks
The US Department of Justice has seized a fifth domain name used to impersonate the official site of a biotechnology company involved in COVID-19 vaccine development.
Since December 2020, the US Department of Justice seized four other domains used by fraudsters for various nefarious purposes, including fraud, phishing attacks, and/or infecting targets' computers with malware.
"The Federal government is providing the vaccine free of charge to people living in the United States. We will continue to aggressively prosecute these fraudsters who seek to prey on unsuspecting residents and their families," Acting US Attorney Jonathan F. Lenzner said.
Threat actors have also targeted orgs associated with COVID-19 vaccine research and involved in the COVID-19 vaccine cold chain.
Chinese-sponsored hacking groups coordinated attacks targeting vaccine research orgs according to a joint public service announcement issued by the FBI and DHS-CISA. The Russian-backed APT29 hacking group has also targeted Canadian, UK, and US vaccine research organizations with the end goal of harvesting intellectual property related to vaccine testing and development.
Last but not least, Microsoft took down domains used in COVID-19-related cybercrime, such as harvesting sensitive information, later to be used in Business Email Compromise attacks.
News URL
Related news
- Australian Organisations Targeted by Phishing Attacks Disguised as Atlassian (source)
- Free Sniper Dz Phishing Tools Fuel 140,000+ Cyber Attacks Targeting User Credentials (source)
- DOJ, Microsoft seize 107 domains used in Russia's Star Blizzard phishing attacks (source)
- Healthcare attacks spread beyond US – just ask India's Star Health (source)
- GitHub, Telegram Bots, and ASCII QR Codes Abused in New Wave of Phishing Attacks (source)
- China again claims Volt Typhoon cyber-attack crew was invented by the US to discredit it (source)
- Astaroth Banking Malware Resurfaces in Brazil via Spear-Phishing Attack (source)
- Phishing scams and malicious domains take center stage as the US election approaches (source)
- Midnight Blizzard Escalates Spear-Phishing Attacks On Over 100 Organizations (source)
- Windows infected with backdoored Linux VMs in new phishing attacks (source)