Microsoft warns of massive Covid-19 themed email phishing scam

Microsoft has warned of massive Covid-19-themed phishing campaigns run by cybercriminals. The campaign involves luring users into downloading NetSupport Manager, a remote administration tool which is commonly used by hackers to gain control of users’ devices.

“We’re tracking a massive campaign that delivers the legitimate remote access tool NetSupport Manager using emails with attachments containing malicious Excel 4.0 macros. The COVID-19 themed campaign started on May 12 and has so far used several hundreds of unique attachments,” said Microsoft’s Security Intelligence team.

Microsoft also demonstrated how the phishing attack works. Users are sent a phishing email with an Excel attachment named “’covid_usa_nyt_8072.xls’ which shows statistics on the Covid-19 deaths in the US. The data is said to be based on New York Times. The source of the email pretends to be from John Hopkins Center.