Wednesday, April 22, 2020
Department of Justice Announces Disruption of Hundreds of Online COVID-19 Related Scams
Hundreds of Domains Disrupted Through Public and Private Sector Cooperative Efforts
Federal authorities announced today that an ongoing cooperative effort between law enforcement and a number of private-sector companies, including multiple internet domain providers and registrars, has disrupted hundreds of internet domains used to exploit the COVID-19 pandemic to commit fraud and other crimes.
As of April 21, 2020, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has received and reviewed more than 3,600 complaints related to COVID-19 scams, many of which operated from websites that advertised fake vaccines and cures, operated fraudulent charity drives, delivered malware, or hosted various other types of scams. To attract traffic, these websites often utilized domain names that contained words such as “covid19,” or “coronavirus.” In some cases, the fraudulent sites purported to be run by, or affiliated with, public health organizations or agencies.
For example, the cooperative effort has disrupted:
An illicit website pretending to solicit and collect donations to the American Red Cross for COVID-19 relief efforts.
Fraudulent websites that spoofed government programs and organizations to trick American citizens into entering personally identifiable information, including banking details.
Websites of legitimate companies and services that were used to facilitate the distribution or control of malicious software.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/department-justice-announces-disruption-hundreds-online-covid-19-related-scams