Fake Online Coronavirus Map Delivers Well-Known Malware

Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center (HC3)

March 10, 2020

Summary:

A malicious website pretending to be the live map for Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases by Johns Hopkins University is circulating on the internet waiting for unwitting internet users to visit the website. Visiting the website infects the user with the AZORult trojan, an information stealing program which can exfiltrate a variety of sensitive data. It is likely being spread via infected email attachments, malicious online advertisements, and social engineering. Furthermore, anyone searching the internet for a Coronavirus map could unwittingly navigate to this malicious website.

This website was using the BAD URL - "Corona-Virus-Map.com" as opposed to the GOOD URL (and link to the map website ) listed here.

Good URL


Threat Detail:

A sample of the malware being deployed by “corona-virus-map[dot]com” was submitted and analyzed by and received an extremely malicious threat score of 100/100 with Anti-virus (AV) detection at 76%. This sample was labeled by Hybrid-Analysis as a Trojan.

Screenshot of malicious map

Additional detail regarding this threat.


Reference:

Reason Labs. (March 9, 2020). COVID-19, Info Stealer & the Map of Threats – Threat Analysis Report. Reasonsecurity.com.  Accessed 10 March 2020 at https://blog.reasonsecurity.com/2020/03/09/covid-19-info-stealer-the-map-of-threats-threatanalysis-report/

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