Ongoing Covid Pandemic Gives Bad Actors New Opportunities
Bad actors have been abusing the global Covid-19 pandemic and have been using the complicated situation for personal gain since the very start. The introduction of new measures and more Internet-enabled technology that deals with Covid only gives new opportunities for the same bad actors to steal information and cause trouble.
In a recent development, the department of health of the state of Indiana announced that the cloud storage containing data from Covid contact-tracing within the state has been leaking data due to a misconfiguration.
The information that was accessible on the misconfigured server included names, gender and race information, as well as dates of birth and emails of over 750 thousand Indiana citizens.
The issue highlights an issue that may manifest itself with increasing frequency and scope in the future. With the advent of so many new online systems that both store and track Covid-related information, from contact tracing to vaccination passports and cards, there is a growing body of personally identifiable and potentially highly sensitive information that can be illegally accessed, stolen and abused.
The Indiana data leak is not the only recent case of Covid-related bad actor activity. ThreatPost discussed a recent report from security firm Flashpoint, who in turn spotted a cybercriminal entity posting on dark web forums under the handle "Freedom".
The hacker was using the forums to sell fake Covid vaccination certificates. What makes this even more worrying is that the Freedom poster claims the falsified documents were obtained with the help of medical practitioners.
There are more fraudsters offering all sorts of fake medical documents online, from forged negative Covid test results to vaccination cards for specific vaccine manufacturers. Prices seem to range from about a hundred to several hundred dollars, depending on the type of fake document.
Flashpoint researchers also spotted Covid vaccination templates floating around on infamous internet board 4chan.
