The Covid-19 pandemic has given enormous opportunities to hackers, who have reportedly been carrying out many phishing and cyberattacks, globally.
Surprisingly, many such incidents involved ‘government-backed attackers’!
Google has reportedly sent warnings to 1,755 users globally, about their accounts getting hacked by various government-backed attackers.
In its recent blog post, Google said its Threat Analysis Group (TAG) is tracking more than 270 government-backed groups from 50 nations.
By distribution of government-backed phishing targets in April 2020, 50-100 Indian users have also received such warnings.
However, the tech giant did not confirm whether their own governments or others attacked them.
Government agencies or state-sponsored groups have different goals in carrying out such attacks.
“Some are looking to collect intelligence or steal intellectual property; others are targeting dissidents or activists, or attempting to engage in coordinated influence operations and disinformation campaigns,” Google said.
Google is taking necessary actions against such threat actors and has reportedly removed more than 1,000 YouTube channels upon suspicion.
“These channels were mostly uploading spammy, non-political content, but a small subset posted primarily Chinese-language political content,” Google added.
Google also confirmed that many Indian firms were found operating fake Gmail accounts to hack personal and financial information of users in the name of WHO.
The prime targets were business leaders in consulting, financial services, and healthcare corporations, for stealing IP or intelligence.
Some also targeted activists and the general public to carry out disinformation campaigns.
According to Check Point Software Technologies, May 2020 alone has witnessed more than 192,000 COVID-themed attacks, 30 percent rise over the previous weeks.
