Government shuts down 1000 websites related to COVID19 scams

Wherever you are in the world, we of course are all affected by COVID-19. Governments are working hard and doing their best to protect citizens from fake and scam related websites that encourage people to apply for money to help curb unemployment. Check out this article as an example of what Canada is doing. Keep in mind that as each country faces this pandemic, be on the lookout for other scams that have NOTHING to do with COVID-19. Scammers are using this opportunity in which the world is distracted and afraid, to capitalize and steal money from you in a variety of ways.

Federal cybersecurity agency – Communications Security Establishment (CSE) is planning on on shutting down 1000 malicious websites that scam or misinform people about the current pandemic. According to the CSE there has been many accounts of fake government of Canada website created within the past 4 months. Many of these claim to be associated with the CERB with the primary goal of attaining personal details of the victims.

Implications

Be Careful who you give out your Social Security Number to. Once a scammer has your SSN they can essentially become you.

Financial Identity Theft: Fraudsters can use your Social Security Number to fill out loan/ credit card applications on your name and withdraw money from your bank using your name.

Government Related Identity Theft: A scam called Stolen Identity Refund Fraud (SIRF) occurs when a fraudster uses your SSN to fill out Tax-refund applications and get money from the government under your name.

Medical Identity theft: Your SSN could be used for medical services charged under your name. You might received bills for medical services you didn’t use, unfamiliar collection notices, denial of coverage due to misinformation.

Utility Fraud: Scammers can use your SSN to get utility service agreements and you will not hear about it until you get a notice of unpaid bills or a get contacted by a bill collected.

How to Avoid

Be weary of who you give your personal information to. If you feel that your SSN has been compromised, file a complaint with the local police to protect yourself from identity theft. Keep an eye out for phishing site: get our scamBlock extension to warn you of potential phishing sites.

Please check out the government of canada website for further details on how to protect your SSN.

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Trustscore

Domain: dropbox.com

Established: 1995-06-28

Server IP Address: 205.251.193.59

Domain Blacklisted: No

In computing, a blacklist, disallowlist, blocklist, or denylist is a basic access control mechanism that blocks all malicious elements (email addresses, websites users, …)

Suspended Site: No

When your website account is suspended, it means the hosting provider has temporarily taken it offline. Website hosts often suspend websites for a myriad of reasons ranging from malware to spam.

Email (MX) Configured: Yes

Verification that the website has its entity’s proper IMAP (Inbox) and SMTP (Outbox) mailbox servers configured correctly.

DMARC Configured: Yes

DMARC is an open email authentication protocol that provides domain-level protection of the email channel. DMARC authentication detects and prevents email spoofing techniques used in phishing, business email compromise (BEC), and other email-based attacks.

SSL Cert Blacklisted: No

Hackers have discovered ways to circumvent, alter, or abuse SSL certificates. An SSL certificate blacklist is a list of untrustworthy SSL certificates that have been created and can potentially harm users.

Website Popular: No

Risky TLD: No

The TLD (Top Level Domain) are the last characters of an entity’s website name, such as .com, .org, etc. Cyber-criminals and threat actors prefer a small set of 25 out of the thousands of available extensions, which accounts for 90% of all malicious sites. A Risky TLD is verification that the domain name is not to be trusted.

Heuristic Pattern: No

If a website uses Heuristics, then it is a scanning method that looks for malware-like behavior patterns. It is commonly used to detect new or not-yet-known malware.

Risky Geolocation: No

Verification to an entity’s geolocation status being labeled as ‘Risky’.

Suspicious Domain: No

Verification the entity’s domain is not listed as being “Suspicious”.