The United States Department of Justice issues an alert regarding the phishing scams that were using the fake post related to Covid-19 vaccination and steal money from the users by hijacking their personal information.
The hackers are utilizing social engineering methods and promise the users for the cash prizes in exchange for filling out the form that was associated with the fake surveys. The attackers only steal the identifiable information and involve identity theft.
However, the experts said that the users received the messages through the email, and in the messages, they were promised or fooled as they were getting a gift or cash by filling the simple survey that needs their personal information. The prizes that the attackers offered are very costly that includes iPhone, iPads, Laptops, Speaker, and many more.
The emails also confirmed that the customer only needs to pay the shipping fee of the prize and they were able to get their gift. Once the trapped user will provide their credit card information and pay the handling fee, the information is stored in the hacker’s database and they never get anything or the promised prize.
Whereas, the DOJ Office of Public Affairs advised that don’t click on any unwanted links or open the messages that wee claiming the prize money or something related to that. If the vaccination link is received from an unknown sender then don’t open the link, always verify and check the link or attachment before downloading or accessing it.
What Actions Did the Users Take?
To stop the spread of this attack and to revoke these types of attacks user have to report it to the concerned authorities and the User who gets the fake phishing emails or text messages that contains the COVID-19 vaccination information had to be reported to the NCDF or concerned authorities.
The United States Federal Trade Commission states that the number of reported theft reports is getting doubled as compare to the last year with the record of 1.4 million users are trapped in a single year.
However, on 31st March 2021, the Internal Revenue Service also warned about an activated phishing attack that was penetrating the IRS and other educational institutions too that was not good for us.
Department of Financial Services in New York also gives additional information related to the ongoing series of these attacks that are already under investigation and the hackers can steal confidential user data.
While to protect themselves from these types of attacks the users can get the Identity Protection PIN ASAP and block the identity thieves while filling the fake forms that used your information.
