MDaemon Technologies Blog

It's just a fact of life: If there's email, there will always be spam. If you’re involved with email security for a healthcare organization, 2020 is absolutely the year you can’t afford not to take this seriously. The healthcare sector has become a major target for cyberattacks during the COVID-19 pandemic, and these attacks are successful so often that Becker’s Hospital Review publishes a monthly update on healthcare provider malware, ransomware and phishing incidents. The most recent list includes:

Whether you run a multi-campus medical center or a small private practice, you’ve likely heard about cyber criminals who try to trick you and your employees into clicking a link or downloading an attachment so they can steal your organization’s money or protected data.

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of cloud services across all industries, but particularly for healthcare providers. If your healthcare organization is considering moving your email from on-premise servers to the cloud, you must do your due diligence around significant security drawbacks that may overshadow the perceived benefits.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a boon for bad actors across the digital landscape. In July, for instance, authorities in the U.S., U.K. and Canada all issued warnings about serious cyberattacks against healthcare organizations and others involved in the coronavirus response. The purpose of these attacks? Theft of intellectual property during the race to develop a vaccine. The tool of choice? Spear-phishing email attacks.

Online scams are nothing new -- but as email has evolved and improved, so have scammers and the messages they send. Nefarious emails, attachments and links now appear sophisticated and look legitimate, sometimes tricking even the most meticulous user.

This week, we learned of a new round of malware being distributed via phishing emails claiming to be from the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Stories of the COVID-19 pandemic’s rapid global spread have paved the way for threat actors to unleash the most widely-used cyber threat in recent memory.

This week, we learned of a new phishing campaign targeting PayPal users in an attempt to extract as much personal data as possible.

Earlier this week, I heard an interesting interview on NPR’s Morning Edition with a recent victim of Business Email Compromise (BEC), a growing threat that uses social engineering to exploit human nature in order to divert massive amounts of money to cybercriminals.

Online scams are nothing new. But as email has evolved and improved, so have scammers and the messages they send. Nefarious emails, attachments and links now appear sophisticated and look legitimate, sometimes tricking even the most meticulous user.