CoronaVirus Malware

It is horrifying how unscrupulous people can take advantage of disasters and unpredicted situations like the pandemic Coronavirus or COVID-19, which has made the top news all around the world, as its victims keep growing and the authorities are doing all that is possible to find a way to put a stop on it. Like in other calamities that affected and took countless lives, the creators of malware are using it to launch and spread their threatening creations to deceive computer users into allowing these pests on their machines, pretending to provide the latest news about the development of the disease, as well as the new form to avoid being infected.

The first malware that was detected by security researchers related to the COVID-19 directly, was called the Corona-virus-map.com (a website that provides statistics about the spread of the Coronavirus ), which was followed closely by the Coronavirus Ransomware (a file encryption malware), the Vicious Panda (which crafts fake Coronavirus help documents and websites), BlackWater (a COVID-19 leaflet) and the CovidLock Ransomware ( another file encryption malware). However, as the cybercrooks are multi-resourceful, they have been using various other threats to help them tospread their threatening creations more efficiently. Among the known threats that are linked to the distribution or are being spread due to favorable circumstances created by the 'popularity' of the Coronavirus theme, are the AZORult, the KPOT that are information-stealers, Emotet, Lokibot, Trickbot and RemcosRAT.

As we can presume by the threat kins that are being used by the threat actors, their goal is not to make money by encrypting their victims' files but also collecting information, which they can use for multiple purposes.

We pray and hope that the pandemic Coronavirus or COVID-19 goes away very soo. However, while it doesn't happen, computer users from everywhere need to be aware of the numerous tricks that unethical people can use to accomplish their obscure goal and be prepared to face such a threat.