Bogus HIV test results are the latest lures used by cybercrooks

guest · Mar 11, 2020

Bogus HIV test results are the latest lures used by cybercrooks
March 11, 2020
https://www.cyberscoop.com/hiv-phishing-proofpoint-coronavirus/

It’s open season for hackers who prey on public health fears to try to dupe people into installing malware.

As phishing attempts related to the novel coronavirus surged in late January, another health-related scam was kicking off. Crooks were sending people fake HIV test results that were laced with malicious code. To make the ruse more believable, the emails purported to come from Vanderbilt University’s prestigious medical center.

“The psychology behind that is: Whether or not you recently did an HIV test, it is very possible that you would still be interested to see HIV test results,” said Sherrod DeGrippo, who heads the threat research and detection team at Proofpoint, the cybersecurity company that discovered the phishing campaign.
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High-profile targets
A group of Russian-speaking, financially motivated hackers appears to behind the HIV-related phishing, DeGrippo said.

They sent out roughly 200 emails to employees of big pharmaceutical, health care, and insurance companies in North America and elsewhere in an effort to install malware known as a remote access trojan (RAT) on the target computers. The Koadic RAT, which is publicly available, lets hackers track keystrokes and upload their own code on a victim’s computer.

Because of its global reach, the coronavirus disease, COVID-19, is a bigger opportunity for cybercriminals to exploit than other health issues, said Errol Weiss, H-ISAC’s chief security officer.
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Proofpoint: Attackers Use Fake HIV Test Results to Target Insurance, Healthcare, and Pharmaceutical Companies Globally

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