The COVID-19 outbreak has led to a rise in hacking attempts, affecting cyberspace. Threat actors are distributing malware disguised as Coronavirus-related health care products to steal personal information from regular internet users. They even designed multiple websites related to Coronavirus information to lure users to click/download malicious applications. The ongoing pandemic has also led organizations across the world to restrict their employees to work from home.
In order to address rising cyberthreats globally, an international group of 400 cybersecurity professionals has come together to combat these cyberattacks. The group, named “COVID-19 CTI League (for cyber threat intelligence), consists of members from more than 40 countries and includes security leaders from major organizations like Microsoft and Amazon.
The COVID-19 CTI League
According to Reuters, the Cyber Threat Intelligence League was founded by security decision-makers Ohad Zaidenberg, Nate Warfield, Chris Mills, and Marc Rogers. Primarily, the group is aimed at preventing cyberattacks against health care facilities and providers. The group is defending health care organizations from cyberattacks and is also using its contacts in internet infrastructure providers to avert phishing attacks and other financially motivated cybercrimes that are using the fear of this pandemic to lure internet users.
According to Marc Rogers, VP of cybersecurity strategy at Okta and DEF CON’s head of security, the COVID-19 CTI League has already traced and dismantled a hacking campaign that used a software vulnerability to distribute malware. Commenting on how the Coronavirus outbreak led to a huge surge in phishing attacks, Rogers said, “I’ve never seen this volume of phishing. I’m literally seeing phishing messages in every language known to man.”
Cybersecurity Firms Allied to Thwart Cyber Risks
With a similar motive, investment firm C5 Capital recently created the C5 Alliance of leading cybersecurity firms including ITC Secure, IronNet, Haven Cyber Technologies, Enveil, 4iQ, and Blue Cedar to combat new threat vectors. The alliance is a response to a 150% increase in healthcare cyberattacks in the last two months, such as phishing emails pretending to be from the World Health Organization (WHO), and ransomware. The alliance will help ensure hospitals and clinics protect their internal systems and databases for patients, healthcare workers, and volunteers.
As part of the alliance, Collective Cyber Defense for Healthcare initiative has been launched to free access for hospitals, clinics and other medical facilities in the U.K. and Europe, to C5’s IronDome system. The collective crowdsourcing defense product, based on IronNet’s collective defense solution, will be managed by ITC Secure’s SOC in London.
