Cybercriminals target Saudis with vaccine data fraud
A series of phishing messages about the newly released Coronavirus vaccine has cybersecurity experts cautioning Saudi citizens to take increased care when it comes to their private data. The messages, which appear to come from official government email addresses, use the Health Ministry COVID-19 vaccine centre registration as a hook for the fraudulent scheme.
The ministry posted an example of one of the scam messages on its Twitter page, featuring the necessary information so users can distinguish between the ministry’s authentic details and the fraudulent accounts created. It also posted some basic facts about the availability and accessibility criteria to the vaccine.
Cybersecurity expert Waleed Al-Tamimi commented on the incident stating:Anyone seeing a message like this will probably just skim over the address when they see something close to the actual government URL, which is exactly what the criminals want. That way, they can access the most sensitive information you can provide, such as your ID number, date of birth and so on.