The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared the new coronavirus a pandemic, spanning 112 countries and regions, as disruptions to daily life reflected around the world. The situation is worrisome. Thousands of people are being tested positive, and many even lost their lives. During the time of global crisis, everyone is keeping a close eye on how it is spreading across the world. A few organisations have also reportedly made dashboards and information websites to keep track of the virus. However, it seems risky. These sites and coronavirus maps are being used to plant malware on victims’ computers. So, in case you come across these COVID-19 maps or other information websites, beware of browsing or downloading such as they are allegedly stealing data. Coronavirus Scare Sparks Racism? Instances of Asians Getting Attacked and Mocked Go Viral on Social Media. 

Reason Labs have discovered that hackers are creating fake versions of the dashboards to steal information including user names, passwords, credit card numbers and other data stored in users’ browsers. Shai Alfasi, a security researcher at Reason Labs, reported that hackers design websites related to COVID-19 in order to prompt you to download an application to keep you updated with the current global crisis. It is important to note here that the application does not need any installation and shows you a map of how coronavirus is spreading. The dashboard looks quite similar to what companies and other organisations have built to keep a track on the spread of the virus.

In his blog post detailing his findings, Alfasi explained, “The new malware activates a strain of malicious software known as AZORult. AZORult is an information stealer and was first discovered in 2016. It is used to steal browsing history, cookies, ID/passwords, cryptocurrency and more. It can also download additional malware onto infected machines. AZORult is commonly sold on Russian underground forums for the purpose of collecting sensitive data from an infected computer.”

How to identify if the sites are safe to browse? The websites pose as accurate maps for tracking coronavirus, but have a different URL or different details from the original site. To avoid falling victim, users are recommended to check only verified dashboards. Alfasi further stated that at present the malware is only affecting Windows machines, but warned that attackers might work on a new version to affect other systems too.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 12, 2020 08:43 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).