WHO becomes more prone to hackers amidst the Coronavirus outbreak

The World Health Organization reported that anonymous hackers allegedly leaked over 25,000 email addresses and their respective passwords of the employees of the Gates Foundation and the World Health Organization.

These hacking activities were initially seen in mid-March, and the number of hackers is gradually increasing. The chief information officer of WHO stated that many top officials are acting as a target for the hackers.

The anonymous activists have released over 2000 passwords, which were linked to WHO and its officials on Monday. The list of hacked email addresses and passwords are estimated to increase.

Senior officials of the World Health Organization targeted

According to the Chief Information Officer at WHO (reported by Bloomberg), most of the officials targeted were the senior members of WHO. Many anonymous hackers also tried to gain access to the official’s computer and that of the staff members too. Fortunately, this attempt was not as successful as the organization detected it immediately and prevented it. The main target of the hackers is the officials involved with COVID-19. The cybersecurity team of WHO is working overtime to avoid further attempts.

Many huge companies like Microsoft, Interpol, and authorities in Israel and the European Union have warned the organization about the increase in the rates of cyberattacks in the upcoming weeks. The shocking fact is that the leak has no interconnection with the recent rise in the hacking activities against WHO as the passwords and email addresses posted recently could have been compromised almost a decade ago.

The CEO of Cyble, the company responsible for the protection of data and information related to WHO, mentioned that the dark web records credentials and the ones released recently were very similar. He further said that Cyble is monitoring the situation and won’t let any further damages take place.

According to a report, the credentials that were released recently might not be a new leak as the emails and passwords released dated back to 2013.

This pandemic has aggravated the cyber attacks as many hackers are even targeting the public health services and also releasing phony Coronavirus tracking applications filled with malware.