When the world shifted to working from home, criminals pounced. Never wanting to miss a chance to capitalize on people in a time of weakness, they stepped up their phishing attacks, created fake COVID-19 information sites, and spoofed government health sites in efforts to access potentially valuable account information.
While those types of attacks and scams have been around for years, people have been more exposed these last few months. With schools closed, students have switched to online learning programs and video calls. Parents find themselves sharing their work laptops with kids to do their schoolwork and join virtual classes. All of a sudden, family and personal accounts for Facebook, Nintendo, Xbox, and Netflix are right alongside office tools like Zoom, Microsoft Office, and corporate email clients.
In some cases, parents have used their work email to create new accounts for their children. They may have even reused the same passwords and shared the credentials with the family. It's easy to imagine parents letting their kids use company Zoom credentials for school calls, and then someone goes and reuses the same login and password to create a Fortnite account.
Then there's the huge boom in online shopping to think about. With stores closed, consumers have turned to e-commerce to get products delivered. In the first half of the year, online spending with US retailers grew 30% — up $60.4 billion — compared with the same period last year, according to the US Department of Commerce. As shoppers have placed online orders with grocery and retail stores for the ..
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