Covid Frauds Going ‘Viral' On Dark Net

Cyber criminals pounce on panic-stricken people and dupe them by selling ‘testing kits and vaccines’ for coronavirus.

- Ankit Kumar

Beware of miracle coronavirus cures and testing kits being peddled on the dark web — the vast underground online market!

Cybersecurity experts warn that scammers are out preying on panic-stricken people looking for safeguards against COVID-19 across encrypted platforms.

According to a New York-based cyber intelligence firm, IntSights, such “coronavirus-themed phishing lures, malware infections, network intrusions, scams, and disinformation campaigns have become rampant across the clear, deep, and dark web.”

Other cybersecurity researchers also point out a spike in Covidlinked suspicious domains.

Dark web is the dirty underbelly of the Internet, where multiple criminal activities, such as narcotics trade, selling off data and other nefarious activities take place, making it extremely difficult to identify the person carrying out trade. As a result, a lot of criminals sell fake 'miracle cures' or other such stuff and vanish as soon as the bitcoins have been transferred to their accounts,” Tarun Wig, co-founder of a cyber and data intelligence firm in New Delhi, Innefu Labs, told India Today TV.

Experts feel that the current atmosphere of fear has given these criminals an ideal climate to carry out fear-mongering and peddle fake medicines as a cure for coronavirus.

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