The world continues to battle the deadly Covid-19 pandemic also called Coronavirus as many sectors and companies encourage their staffs to work from home.
Office workers who usually don’t have much time for their social networks and mass random messages now have ample time to go through their devices and computers and even see a few movie series.
Ironically, this is possible as individuals cling to the only thing that could help them communicate with the outer work – their smartphones.
This large number of human force all stuck at home has led a major increase in online scammers as even the ethical one’s amongst them have grown bored and looking for new loopholes to exploit.
Organizations are been targeted, individuals are made to pay the price for being idle, phishing mails are getting sent and received at a rate of a thousand mails every second. But asides all these, individuals are encouraged to stay safe from the deadly virus with recorded infection figures going up each day here in the part of the world.
Seems everyone forgot about the other safe which is very much vital too??!
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) is warning the Internet community that COVID-19 has sparked rising scammers leveraging the deadly virus to steal money, personal information or both from users of online services.
“Protect yourself and do your research before clicking on links purporting to provide information on the virus; donating to a charity online or through social media; contributing to a crowdfunding campaign; purchasing products online; or giving up your personal information in order to receive money or other benefits”, the US law enforcement agency advises.
In this part of the world where vulnerable individuals hardly struggle to survive each day, talks making rounds on the internet regarding the Nigerian government sharing stimulus package of N20,000 to every citizen has done little to help arrest the issue of cybercrime.
Hackers and scammers have been continuously bombarding individuals with phishing links to give away their details so as to enlist them and reserve their own package; which invariably is only sugar-coated lies.
This is not a happy sight as so many individuals who struggle to make through each day with their families end up giving away the little they have in reserve.
A recent war brewing between the United States and China over alleged hack into the former’s Covid-19 vaccine research systems just goes about to tell you no one is exempt from the monster that is Cyber attack.
Furthermore, company’s have had to educate their staffs with regards to working from home and handling logins both on personal and public computers as any major breakthrough in user data could finally result in giving away company information which isin’t really a worthy report.
FBI says Internet users should always use good cyber hygiene and security measures when they are online.
According to the law enforcement agency, the following five(core) tips are vital for any Internet user to protect themselves and help limit the rate of cybercrime activity:
- Do not open attachments or click links within emails from senders you don’t recognize no matter how tempting the message contained is.
- Do not provide your username, password, date of birth, social security number, BVN, financial data, or other personal information in response to an email or robocall from a random individual.
- Always verify the web address of legitimate websites and manually type them into your browser. If possible Google search the address name categorically before clicking through.
- Check for misspellings or wrong domains within a link (for example, an address that should end in a “.gov” ends in .com” instead).
- If you believe you are the victim of an Internet scam or cyber crime, or if you want to report suspicious activity, don’t hesitate to contact the institution involved ASAP.
Internet fraud is a monster that won’t just go away yet but with staying safe, careful and regulating our online footprints, we could save lives and cooperations at large.
Originally Posted On NaijaTechGuy
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