...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...pandemic, the Justice Department announced Wednesday.
The FBI as of Tuesday received more than 3,600 complaints related to COVID-19 scams, "many of which operated from websites that advertised fake vaccines and cures, operated fraudulent charity drives, delivered malware, or hosted various other types of scams," according to a statement.
"To attract traffic, these websites often utilized domain names that contained words such as ’covid19,’ or ’coronavirus.’ In some cases, the fraudulent sites purported to be run by, or affiliated with, public health organizations or agencies," it added.
Law enforcement and several private-sector companies — including several internet domain providers and registrars — cooperated in the effort to disrupt the efforts of the cybercriminals, the feds said.
Among the illegal coronavirus-related sites was one pretending to solicit and collect donations for the American Red Thingy and others that spoofed government programs to trick people into entering personally identifiable information.