9,100 coronavirus-themed cyberattacks witnessed in India between Feb 2-May 2: Microsoft

NEW DELHI : Cybercrooks are using covid-19 to make ransomware and phishing attacks on people, and over 9,000 coronavirus-themed attacks were noticed in India between February 2 and May 2, according to a Microsoft executive.

“Between February 2 and May 2, we saw 9,100 total file encounters related to covid-19 or coronavirus. It means our detection tools actually saw malware or URL or an attachment or a phishing email that was using covid-19 as a lure to get somebody to download malware to the system or potentially to give up their credentials via a phishing attack,” Microsoft Corp Corporate Vice President (Cybersecurity Solutions Group) Ann Johnson told reporters on a conference call.

About 19 million such attacks were noted in Asia, she added.