With the spread of the coronavirus worldwide, interest is high in related topics. Accordingly, Unit 42 researchers found an immense increase in coronavirus-related Google searches and URLs viewed since the beginning of February. Cybercriminals are looking to profit from such trending topics, disregarding ethical concerns, and in this particular case preying on the misfortunes of billions.
To protect customers of Palo Alto Networks, Unit 42 researchers monitor user interest in trending topics and newly registered domain names related to these topics, as miscreants often leverage them for malicious campaigns. Accompanying the growth in user interest, we observed a 656% increase in the average daily coronavirus-related domain name registrations from February to March. In this timeframe, we witness a 569% growth in malicious registrations, including malware and phishing; and a 788% growth in “high-risk” registrations, including scams, unauthorized coin mining, and domains that have evidence of association with malicious URLs within the domain or utilization of bulletproof hosting. As of the end of March, we identified 116,357 coronavirus-related newly registered domain names. Out of these, 2,022 are malicious and 40,261 are “high-risk”.
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Source: Palo Alto