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U.S., U.K. Cyber Officials Say State-Backed Hackers Taking Advantage of Outbreak


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American and British cybersecurity officials warn that state-backed hackers and online criminals are taking advantage of the coronavirus outbreak to further their operations.

Credit: Dado Ruvic/Reuters

Cybersecurity officials in the U.S. and the U.K. are warning that state-backed hackers and cybercriminals are taking advantage of the coronavirus pandemic to further their operations.

While the overall volume of malicious activity does not appear to have changed, hackers of all varieties are leveraging anxiety around the outbreak to push people into clicking links and downloading attachments, according to a joint advisory recently published by the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency and Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre.

The agencies warn that hackers also are exploiting growing demand for work-from-home solutions by passing off their malicious tools as remote collaboration software produced by Zoom and Microsoft.

In addition, hackers are targeting the virtual private networks that allow an increasing number of employees to connect to their offices.

From Reuters
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Abstracts Copyright © 2020 SmithBucklin, Washington, DC, USA


 

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