Security agencies in both the UK and US have warned that hackers are targeting organisations involved in the coronavirus response.
The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), claim that hackers have targeted international healthcare and medical research organisations.
Paul Chichester, NCSC Director of Operations, said: “Protecting the healthcare sector is the NCSC’s first and foremost priority at this time, and we’re working closely with the NHS to keep their systems safe.
“By prioritising any requests for support from health organisations and remaining in close contact with industries involved in the coronavirus response, we can inform them of any malicious activity and take the necessary steps to help them defend against it.
“But we can’t do this alone, and we recommend healthcare policy makers and researchers take our actionable steps to defend themselves from password spraying campaigns.”
The experts believe that hackers are targeting these organisations in a desperate attempt to gather information related to the coronavirus outbreak.
Based on the findings, the experts are urging people working at these organisations to be vigilant about their cybersecurity.
Staff are being advised to change any passwords that could be reasonably guessed to one created with three random words.
They're also been asked to implement two-factor authentication to reduce the threat of compromises.
