Indians targeted by 9,100 covid-themed cyber attacks between Feb 2-May 2: Microsoft

New Delhi: Cyber crooks have been taking advantage of the COVID-19 crisis to defraud people using ransomware and phishing attacks on people. More than 9,000 coronavirus-themed attacks were detected in India between February 2 and May 2, a Microsoft executive said.

“Between February 2 and May 2, we saw 9,100 total file encounters related to COVID-19 or coronavirus,” Microsoft Corp Corporate Vice President (Cybersecurity Solutions Group) Ann Johnson told reporters on a conference call. “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.”