The coronavirus crisis has had a major impact on our online behaviour; many people are teleworking via the internet, there is more online shopping and digital messaging services such as WhatsApp are being used more intensively. However, this increased online activity also means that online fraud by deception is exploding. Cybercriminals are using the coronavirus crisis as a new angle and therefore often have free rein.
Below we list the most common forms of coronavirus fraud for you:
Phishing
Phishing is a phenomenon where the fraudster pretends to be a trusted authority in order to extort money and data from unsuspecting citizens. For example, cybercriminals pretend to be the FPS Finance via email, asking for overdue payments to be made. The coronavirus crisis now gives these criminals a new angle: they ask for a corona premium as compensation for the current coronavirus measures. In order to transfer this corona premium, your bank details or credit card number are requested. In this way, coronavirus fraud can be committed.
The danger is that these emails often look very professional. For example, you are redirected to a website that can look like a real government website. In addition, logos are recreated very accurately and fake email addresses closely resemble the original email addresses. As a result, it is often no longer possible to distinguish what is real from what is fake.
Smishing
SafeOnWeb, a Belgian government initiative to inform and advise citizens about cybersecurity, warned earlier this year about “smishing” (phishing via SMS). Smishing happened on a massive scale when the government actually decided to pay out corona premiums. An SMS was sent, supposedly on behalf of the National Security Council, stating that every citizen would receive compensation for the invoices they had paid during the crisis. This referred to a fake website. On this website, one could supposedly click through to their own bank’s website. In this way, cybercriminals could once again extort bank details from the victims.
Recently, there have also been more and more reports of WhatsApp fraud. Using a person’s hacked WhatsApp account, messages are sent to family or friends along the lines of “Hi Mum, I have a new phone number, can you pay a bill for me?”. Because personal contacts are limited during the coronavirus crisis, these requests were increasingly met.
Fraudulent websites
The coronavirus crisis has also led to an increase in fraudulent websites. For example, cybercriminals falsely pretend to be a health organisation offering medicines, tests or other coronavirus information. Various webshops are also popping up selling fraudulent products such as hand gels or face masks. However, these products never arrive when they are ordered. Sometimes they even refer to certificates of conformity and often attempt to extort your email address and password via promotional offers.
Protecting yourself is the message
How can you protect yourself against such forms of online fraud by deception? A giveaway is usually the email address or link address they are trying to get you to visit. This will look very much like the official email address of the relevant service. A slight deviation is, for example, the use of .org instead of .be. Therefore, always check the official email address of the service contacting you. Do you receive an SMS from a family member asking you to transfer money? Then always contact this person directly first.
If you have been a victim of online fraud by deception or have further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.