With trillions of dollars of financial aid being made available to help individuals and organizations weather the COVID-19 pandemic, it should come as no surprise there is now a massive wave of attempts being made to divert those funds into the hands of cybercriminals.
GroupSense CEO Kurtis Minder said the provider of cyber intelligence services is now seeing many more cases of cybercriminals using stolen personally identifiable information (PII) ranging from Social Security numbers to tax identification numbers to fraudulently claim COVID-19 benefits. Most of this fraudulent activity is being aimed at states overseeing the distribution of unemployment benefits and banks that have been enlisted by the Small Business Administration (SBA) to make loans to businesses, he said.