Cyberattacks are Up at the World Health Organization

The World Health Organization has been busy dealing with one of the biggest calamities in contemporary times, the COVID-19 pandemic that has had much of the world on pause for the past few months. Unfortunately, they’ve been dealing with an increase in cyberattacks. Today, we’ll take a look at some of the issues the WHO is having with cybercriminals. 

External Threats

With their position at the forefront of society during the pandemic the WHO has unfortunately attracted the less desirables of society, too. Cybercriminals are using the current COVID-19 pandemic, and the WHOs collection for their COVID-19 Solitary Response Fund, to steal information. Other scammers are currently attempting to steal money from people by extracting payment card information and login credentials from retailers and fintech companies. 

There’s also the matter of state-sponsored hacking, which is continuously trying to capitalize on opportunities presented by this emergency to infiltrate and spy on other nations. 

Internal Threats

Internally, the WHO has suffered a significant data breach recently. 450 active WHO email accounts and passwords were leaked by hackers. This is in addition to thousands of emails from people working deliberately on the Novel Coronavirus response. A WHO spokesman said that the attack only affected an old extranet system that staff, former employees, and outside partners use. They have since implemented considerably more secure authentication systems.

It stands to reason that the WHO has been targeted by hackers during this period as cybercriminals are opportunists by nature and COVID-19 is sadly looked upon as such an opportunity. 

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