Amid the coronavirus pandemic, attackers are capitalizing on public fear and taking advantage of heightened emotions by targeting victims in email phishing attacks related to COVID-19. The number of email attacks related to COVID-19 has been increasing since January according to data collected by cybersecurity firm Barracuda Networks. However, the company also reported that recently there has been a huge spike in this kind of attack, stating that there has been a 667% increase since the end of February.

Barracuda reported that between March 1 and March 23, researchers detected over 467,000 spear-phishing email attacks, and over 9,000 of those were related to COVID-19. This represents 2% of all attacks in March so far, whereas in January only 137 COVID-19 related spear-phishing attacks were recorded while February saw 1,188. The threat of cybersecurity risks in COVID-19 topics continues to grow as attackers take advantage of the situation and people seeking information regarding the pandemic.

Read More: 667% spike in email phishing attacks due to coronavirus fears