National Health Service, the government-funded program for people living in the UK, has been one of the prime targets for cyber attackers amidst this pandemic. From a data request made by Parliament Street to NHS Digital about any potential cyber-attacks on NHS, it revealed that over 40,000 attacks were recorded as spam since March to mid-July.
NHS Attacked With Thousands of Phishing Emails
A number of security researchers and cyber authorities have been warning critical industries like healthcare to remain vigilant lately, as they’re now becoming a lucrative target for hackers. Apart from hitting with a ransomware attack, several adversaries are targeting hospitals technical infrastructure to steal research data on COVID-19 vaccine.
As the world’s racing to produce a reliable vaccine for Coronavirus, hackers are targeting those sensitive areas to cash upon. In one such incident, an information request made by Parliament Street under the Freedom of Information revealed that NHS staff has reported over 40,000 spam and phishing attacks between March to mid-July.
Detailing more, the NHS staff has reported about 21,188 malicious emails in March, 8,085 emails in April, 5,883 emails in May, 6,468 emails in June and 1,484 emails in the first half of July. A phishing attack is something when a scammer crafts a clone webpage of something original and then shares it to the target for capturing his credentials when logged into the malicious forms.
The Chief information security officer of NHS Digital, Neil Bennett said: “This is an unprecedented time for the NHS, including the cybersecurity and IT teams who are continuing to work hard in all NHS organisations to keep patient data and systems secure to support the delivery of safe patient care.”
He said they’re collaborating with all the areas of the system to make aware of such cyberattacks to the employees, and reporting suspicious emails would raise awareness. There are advisories from the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) for securing the infrastructure of sensitive industries in this hard time.
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