One dose of vaccine, illustration -
Jeremy Selwyn / AP / SIPA
British health authorities have alerted to the activities of cybercriminals using the coronavirus health crisis to extract personal information.
Hackers have in fact decided to take advantage of the enthusiasm of some Internet users for the vaccine against Covid-19.
They send messages to the official aspect and offer the recipient to make an appointment for an injection, the BBC says.
For more credibility, the authors of this phishing campaign are impersonating the NHS, the public health body in the United Kingdom.
They assure their targets that they are "eligible vaccine candidates" and provide a link to a site presented as official.
But this is not the case.
The platform set up by cybercriminals allows them to obtain private data on their victims.
Covid-19 scams on the rise
On the false page of the NHS, candidates for vaccination are thus asked to indicate several personal information but also their bank details "for verification purposes".
The country's health authorities have indicated that in no case will they ask for this type of information from future vaccinees.
Those who received such a message were asked to notify the police.
The elderly or frail, who know that the vaccine should be offered to them, are particularly targeted by pirates.
"The vaccine is the bearer of immense hope, that of the end of the pandemic and of containment, but some want to create even greater misfortune by defrauding others", denounced Katherine Hart, member of an organization in charge of standards commercial.
The specialist explained that scams linked to the coronavirus have been increasing since the start of the epidemic.
"Every time we act, unscrupulous individuals change their scam methods to trick the public," she lamented.
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High Tech
Covid 19
Coronavirus
Vaccine
United Kingdom
Cybercriminality
Phishing