Over the past two weeks, the number of cyber attacks linked to the coronavirus theme has increased significantly, according to the Check Point investigation. The security company indicates that out of a few hundred attacks linked to this topic recorded in February, March brought a dramatic increase in the number of daily episodes. On average, Check Point indicates that there are 2600 cyber attacks per day, taking advantage of the coronavirus theme.

The peak of attacks occurred on March 28, when more than 5,000 attacks were registered. A vast majority of events are triggered via phishing websites (84%) and about 2% of events lead the victim to a malicious website using mobile devices. Check Point details that it considered cyber attacks linked to the virus malicious events that have the words corona or covid in the domain, files with names linked to corona or files distributed by email with the theme coronavirus in the subject of the message. Despite daily increases, the company indicates that, between January and March 2020, the total number of attacks over the course of a month fell by 17%. In the past two weeks, Check Point points out that it has found more than 30,000 records of new domains linked to coronavirus and covid-19. Of this number, 131 were considered malicious and another 2777 were considered suspicious, currently under investigation. Since January 2020, more than 51,000 domains linked to the pandemic have been registered. Attacks on Netflix have doubled Over the past two weeks, social isolation has fattened Netflix's numbers, one of the most targeted solutions for spending time at home. Check Point's investigation reveals that the number of phishing attacks, created with the aim of accessing users' personal data or payment information, has doubled.

The company indicates that several domains are joining Netflix to the theme of covid, promising different payment options to obtain information from users. With the Zoom video conferencing tool gaining fans every day, whether for work or to communicate with friends, hackers are also aware of this increased attention given to the platform. Check Point reports that it has seen an increase in the number of domain registrations with the word Zoom and that it has already identified malicious files that pretend to be the legitimate tool. The company found more than 1700 new domains registered under the name Zoom since the start of the pandemic - 25% were registered last week. “The great inclination for coronavirus-related cyber attacks is correlated with the pessimistic news from the US and Europe.

At the same time that the number of casualties increases, so does the number of cyber attacks related to the virus. We can expect this trend to continue in the short term, ”says Omer Dembinsky, Data Manager of Threat Intelligence at Check Point.

“Clearly, hackers are shifting their targets that were focused on business organizations, but since most are working from home, for activities that can directly reach users in their homes, attacking platforms like Zoom and Netflix, with whom we recently conducted an analysis of their infrastructure. It is important for everyone to exercise good cybersecurity practices, and to be extra cautious when we receive documents or links. ”