COVID19 Vaccine Fraudsters Targeted Health Authorities in 40 Countries

INTERPOL has issued a global alert regarding organized criminal organizations approaching governments and peddling COVID-19 vaccinations through fraudulent offers. 

After INTERPOL reported about 60 incidents from 40 nations, the international law enforcement organization sent a warning to all 194 member countries. 

The staff of hospitals and health ministries was targeted, with fraudsters promising to offer COVID-19 vaccinations that had been licensed for distribution in their respective countries. To mislead their victims, the hackers pretended to be executives of vaccine manufacturers or government officials in charge of vaccine distribution. 

To finalize the deal, the fraudsters targeted their victims’ work and personal email accounts, as well as tried to contact them over the phone, cold calling, and pitched about fraudulent vaccines. The fraudsters’ techniques should raise certain red flags as vaccination purchases are negotiated on a government level or, in the case of the European Union (EU), by a special Joint Negotiation Team.

Vaccine producers also played a key role in drafting the warning, since INTERPOL based it on information supplied by the manufacturers, stressing additional scam strategies such as the use of counterfeit websites and social media profiles. 

The INTERPOL Secretary General Jürgen Stock stated, “As we see with cybercrime, usually it is the private sector which has the most information about attacks and trends, which is exactly what has happened with these attempted vaccine scams. Even when a

[…]
Content was cut in order to protect the source.Please visit the source for the rest of the article.

Read the original article: COVID19 Vaccine Fraudsters Targeted Health Authorities in 40 Countries