Cybersecurity Pros Warn COVID-19 Pandemic as a Tool

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has not only had health and economic implications on businesses, individuals, and governments but has also become a tool for hackers and crackers to use in committing cyberattacks. The purpose of this paper is to create awareness on the use of the pandemic as a cyberattack tool and to present remediation strategies. The research was conducted through a review of existing literature from websites and reputable databases, including Google Scholar and IEEE Xplore. The themes from the literature sources include the prevalence of phishing, scamming, spamming, and malware as the common attack vectors. Business enterprises, including operators in healthcare, finance, and Internet service provision, should actively implement risk management plans to monitor attack vectors and secure their systems, clients, and users from the COVID-19 attack tools.