A Google report has revealed that several hacks-for-hire firms are targeting vulnerable people at a time of a global pandemic, by spoofing the World Health Organisation, business leaders, and consulting firms in US, UK and Bahrain.

As per the tech-giant, most of these firms are based out of India and are launching Coronavirus-themed attacks, as the virus continues to disrupt lives across the world.   

Speaking of one such form of attack, Google said, “We have seen new activity from ‘hack-for-hire’ firms, many based in India, that have been creating Gmail accounts spoofing the WHO”.

“The accounts have largely targeted business leaders in financial services, consulting, and healthcare corporations within numerous countries, including the US, Slovenia, Canada, India, Bahrain, Cyprus, and the UK,” Google said in a recent blog post.

The blog further explained that these emails contain links to a fake WHO website, which holds a great resemblance to the actual WHO website. People subscribe to these websites, hoping to receive regular updates from the health body on Coronavirus, but end up signing up for the attacker-hosted website.

These websites have fake login pages, which prompts people to give-in their Gmail account details and also their phone numbers. 

“Generally, 2020 has been dominated by COVID-19. The pandemic has taken centre stage in people’s everyday lives, in the international news media, and in the world of government-backed hacking,” the blog read.

Google further said its Advanced Protection Program (APP) uses hardware security keys and provides the strongest protections available against account hijackings.

A similar trend was also highlighted by Microsoft recently. It had stated that over 9,000 coronavirus-themed attacks were noticed in India between February 2 and May 2, and about 19 million such attacks were observed in Asia.