Researchers from security firm Kaspersky said cybercriminals are exploiting the coronavirus pandemic by actively using the topic in spreading malware such as backdoors and spyware in the past few weeks.
The government agencies said now is the worst possible time to fall victim to online fraudsters as they can steal sensitive data, cause financial, and reputational damages, and make devices unusable.
Named MonitorMinor, the software enables stalkers to covertly access any data and track activity on devices they are surveying, as well as the most popular messaging services and social networks.
In terms of the data involved, most incidents saw leakages of customer-related details such as personally identifiable information (53%), authentication credentials (33%), payment or credit card specifics (32%), account numbers (27%), and other personal particulars (26%).
In Asia Pacific, Kaspersky has detected 53 coronavirus-related malware in the Philippines, 93 in Bangladesh, 40 in China, 23 in Vietnam, 22 in India, and 20 in Malaysia.
From its 11th ranking last 2018, the Philippines climbed to fourth place in Kaspersky’s worldwide ranking of countries with the highest Web threat detections from January to December 2019.
Sen. Richard J. Gordon said the Philippines needs to have its own cyber experts and stressed that the government should create plans on countering possible malicious cyber-attacks in the future.
In 1993, Gil Shwed, along with two friends, put up a network security venture they called Check Point. Now, the company is one of Israel's largest technology companies and the world's largest pure-play cybersecurity firm.
