With a sense of honor and the common good, last month some scammers “promised to refrain” from attacking healthcare operations during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Unfortunately, some people believed them!

I get it.  This virus impacts every one of us.  We all would like to believe that, in this current environment, people will step up and do the right thing.  For the most part, they have, and it has been wonderful to witness.  We are all on the same team, right?

That promise was broken within a New York minute.  The con artists went to work pretending to be healthcare organizations and sent out phishing emails and even launched an attack at hospitals.  Google alone blocks more than 100 million phishing emails A DAY!  That is in addition to 240 million daily COVID-related spam messages.  Let those numbers sink in for a second.  The pandemic is a cybercriminal’s dream.  It presents so many opportunities to pray on the vulnerable.

The good news is that others are stepping up to do their part.  A group, which one tech publication called the cyber version of the Justice League, formed about a month ago to help fight cybercrime.  They call themselves the CTI League (Connecting Cyber Threat Intelligence).  They are an online, global community of cyber threat intelligence researchers, infosecurity experts, CISOs, and other relevant people within the industry, whose goal is to neutralize cyber threats exploiting the current COVID-19 pandemic.

In March they released their Inaugural report.  Since inception, the league has lawfully taken down 2,833 cybercriminal assets on the Internet, including 17 designed to impersonate government organizations, the United nations, and the World health organization.  More information is available here.

Once again, necessity is the mother of invention.  I am hopeful this will evolve into the new and more effective way of neutralizing cybercrime.  A global team effort with a common purpose.  Maybe once we conquer COVID-19 and are well into the new normal they can turn their focus to robocalls?

COVID-19 is our common enemy, whether you are a nurse, a doctor, a warehouse employee, a store clerk, a member of the CTI League, any other Hometown Hero, or simply doing your part to stay home.  Thank you for stepping up, because this impacts each and every one of us.