U.K. Cyber Spies Took Down 15-Times More Scams in Pandemic
- Attackers imitated government agencies to exploit pandemic
- Fake celebrity endorsements underpinned other popular schemes
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Criminals launched more websites to trick people into giving up data, downloading malware and sending them money during 2020, taking advantage of pandemic lockdown by pretending to be celebrities, shops and government agencies.
The U.K.’s National Cyber Security Centre took down 700,595 malicious campaigns last year, 15-times more than a year earlier as the number of scams increased and it began targeting new types of fraud, the agency said in a report published on Monday.