Over the past week, Google has announced the daily observation of more than 18 million phishing emails containing malware related to the Corona virus (COVID-19). Additionally, the internet giant has seen more than 240 million spam messages related to COVID-19 every day. According to reports, the company blocks 100 million phishing emails daily.
Last week, Microsoft also reported seeing about 60,000 phishing emails related to COVID-19 every day, but the company said that these emails accounted for less than 2 percent of all phishing emails.
Recently, cybercriminals have taken advantage of the current situation created by the coronavirus pandemic to launch their email attacks in an attempt to trick users into revealing credentials, installing malware, or sending money to accounts controlled by the attacker.
According to Google, some of the phishing attacks and scams it has seen attempt to impersonate reputable government organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) to fraudulently request donations or distribute malware. Other malicious emails also target remote employees or small businesses by referring to incentive packages and mimicking government institutions.
Announcing that it is proactively monitoring for malware and phishing attacks related to COVID-19, Google also stated that most of these threats are not new, but have been updated to fit the current situation. As soon as a threat is detected, it adds it to the Browsing Safe API, which protects users of Chrome, Gmail and other integrated products, the company added. The Browsing Safe interface helps protect more than 4 billion devices every day by displaying warnings to users when they visit dangerous websites or download malicious files.
