Islamabad: The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on Friday, has warned of cyber-attacks amid COVID-19 outbreak.
PTA has issued an advisory, warning people to be watchful for messages disguised as pretending to contain COVID-19 information.
The national telecommunication authority has also advised people to abstain from using public Wi-Fi networks as they are excessively susceptible to malware and are an ideal tool for hackers to infect electronic devices.
Cyber security experts have warned that coronavirus pandemic and the lockdown has increased the dependency on digital infrastructure around the world. Many governments are disseminating information via digital means while businesses and public-sector organizations have been offering or enforcing “work from home” policies, where else social interactions have rapidly been confined to video calls, social media posts and chat programmes – providing a prime opportunity to hackers to prey in concerned masses amid virus pandemic as Stress can incite users to take actions that would be considered irrational in other circumstances.
For example, a recent global cyber-attack targeted people looking for visuals of the spread of COVID-19. The malware was concealed in a map displaying coronavirus statistics loaded from a legitimate online source. Viewers were asked to download and run a malicious application that compromised the computer and allowed hackers to access stored passwords.
PTA has advised its users to only resort to government sources i.e. official websites and portals to obtain any information regarding coronavirus.
