Wuhanvirus Phishing: US Government, Healthcare Workers Targeted

The US government categorizes fast-food workers as essential amid the wuhanvirus pandemic, and apparently cybercriminals have found 'attack vectors.'

Threat Analysis Group (TAG), a Google group which tracks state-backed hackers, says one group has started using free meals and coupons supposedly from fast-food franchises to lure US government workers into exposing their Gmail credentials. 

The scam involved wuhanvirus messaging and directed victims to a website disguised as a page for arranging meal deliveries.

According to Google, "Once people clicked on the emails, they were presented with phishing pages designed to trick them into providing their Google account credentials. The vast majority of these messages were sent to spam without any user ever seeing them, and we were able to preemptively block the domains using Safe Browsing. We’re not aware of any user having their account compromised by this campaign, but as usual, we notify all targeted users with a “government-backed attacker” warning."

The tech giant said hackers are also targeting national and international health organizations and their employees worldwide.

Google said it's been blocking 18 million malicious coronavirus emails every day, and that's not including the 240 million spam emails related to the virus.