Nation state hackers running espionage against Coronavirus medical research organizations

“We have certainly seen reconnaissance activity and some intrusions into some of those institutions, especially those that have publicly identified themselves as working on COVID-19 related research,” the deputy assistant director of the FBI’s cyber division, Tonya Ugoretz, said Thursday while speaking on a virtual panel hosted by the Aspen Institute.

“There was this brief shining moment when we hoped that, cybercriminals are human beings, too, and maybe they would think that targeting or taking advantage of this pandemic for personal profit might be beyond the pale,” said Ugoretz. “Sadly, that has not been the case.”

On a more positive note, many initiatives have been developed by the security industry supporting those who are supporting us during this crisis. One such effort is the Cyber Threat Intelligence League, which has assembled approximately 1,400 cybersecurity experts across 76 countries in just three weeks. During Thursday’s webinar, one of the League’s co-founders, Marc Rogers, vice president of cybersecurity at Okta, announced a few statistics on its impact to-date:

• 2,833 malicious websites taken down
• 2,500+ distinct phishing messages collected and analyzed
• 2,000+ cybersecurity vulnerabilities detected in high-risk organizations (e.g., hospitals), with severe cases escalated to law enforcement

These numbers are just “the tip of the iceberg,” according to Rogers, and the Cyber Threat Intelligence League will soon release a comprehensive report that illustrates the full scope of its activities. “[There’s] a really, really pronounced appetite for good in the community.”