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April 26, 2020Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization has seen a "dramatic increase" in cyber attacks targeting its staff and e-mail scams targeting the general public. The cyber-attacks directed against the UN agency for health today are "a number more than 5 times higher than that recorded in the same period last year", is the calculation of the WHO, which launches a global appeal: "Be vigilant on fraudulent emails. We recommend using reliable sources to obtain concrete information about Covid-19 and other health issues. "The alarm is launched after this week about 450 active WHO email addresses and passwords have been disclosed online along with thousands more belonging to people working on the new coronavirus emergency response. "The leaked credentials - points out the WHO - did not endanger the organization's systems because the data were not recent. However, the attack had an impact on an older extranet system, used by current and retired staff as well as from partners. " WHO also informs about the countermeasures that had to be taken: the agency is in fact now migrating the systems concerned towards a more secure authentication system. Fraudsters who pretend to be WHO representatives in e-mails have increasingly targeted the general public in order to channel donations to a fictitious fund, and not to the authentic Covid-19 Solidarity Response Fund.
"Ensuring the security of health information for the Member States and the privacy of users who interact with us is a priority for the WHO at all times - assures WHO Chief Information Officer Bernardo Mariano - but in particular during the Covid pandemic -19. We are grateful for the alerts we receive from the Member States and the private sector. We are together in this struggle. "