The recent approval of COVID-19 vaccines across the world finally offers a path out of the crisis, and the potential for some kind of normality to return over the coming months.
Sadly, however, this latest development in the pandemic story has already been seized upon by fraudsters to launch a number of scams. This shouldn’t come as any surprise, with techniques such as phishing extensively used by cyber-criminals throughout the crisis to target victims. For instance, at the start of the pandemic, it was found that phishing emails went up by 667% in a month, and this tactic has persisted ever since.
COVID-19 has undoubtedly provided the perfect lures for phishing scams to be launched, be it via email, SMS or social media, as people are understandably in a heightened state of anxiety about the health and financial impact on their lives, and therefore more vulnerable to being duped by offers of help and solutions. This has occurred both in relation to the health aspects of the crisis, such as bogus offers of personal protective equipment (PPE) and testing kits, and the various economic support measures governments have brought in to help businesses and individuals unable to work during lockdown restrictions. These are often highly sophisticated and realistic, generally linking victims to fake websites that ask them to provide personal details, such as banking information.
We are now starting to see similar types of scams emerge to take advantage of the latest stage of the crisis; vaccines. This week, Pauline Smith, head of Action Fraud, the UK’s national reporting center for fraud and cybercrime, warned that although reports have been relatively low so far, “we have seen an increase in the last two months, particularly around scam text messages.”
As vaccine programs begin in many countries at the start of 2021, it appears fraudsters are ramping up their targeting of this sensitive issue . This is especially worrisome given that those first in line for vaccines, the very elderly, are among the groups most likely to duped. In the UK, where individuals aged 80 and older are currently awaiting contact from the National Health Service (NHS) about when they are eligible for the jab, numerous examples have been highlighted by authorities. In late December, an NHS body said it was aware of a scam whereby people are asked to press a number on their keypad or send a text to confirm they wish to receive the vaccine, which may result in a charge being applied to their phone bill.
Police forces in the UK also this week outlined details of a text message scam telling recipients they are “eligible to apply for your vaccine.” This links victims to a fake NHS website in which they are asked to provide personal information and bank details “for verification.”