follow us:
The Indian cybersecurity agency CERT-In has issued a warning about phishing attacks targeting users affected by the recent global computer outage. Fraudsters are pretending to be CrowdStrike support staff, offering system recovery tools but instead installing malware. The agency's advisory, released on Saturday, highlights the risk of these attacks tricking users into downloading malware that could lead to data leaks and system crashes.
The Indian cybersecurity agency CERT-In has issued a warning about phishing attacks targeting users affected by the recent global computer outage. Fraudsters are pretending to be CrowdStrike support staff, offering system recovery tools but instead installing malware. The agency’s advisory, released on Saturday, highlights the risk of these attacks tricking users into downloading malware that could lead to data leaks and system crashes. The outage on July 19, triggered by a faulty update to CrowdStrike’s Falcon Sensor software, caused widespread disruption, including Microsoft Windows crashes, flight delays, and impacts on business, banking, and hospital systems globally. Although systems have been restored with official fixes from CrowdStrike and Microsoft, attackers are exploiting the situation by promoting malicious software scripts as recovery tools.
Phishing attacks involve fraudsters masquerading as legitimate entities through emails, text messages, or phone calls to deceive victims into revealing sensitive personal information, such as banking details and login credentials. CERT-In advises users and organizations to take preventive measures, including configuring firewalls to block specific URLs like ‘crowdstrikeoutage[.]info’ and ‘www.crowdstrike0day[.]com’, along with numerous hashes. To safeguard against such threats, CERT-In recommends following trusted cybersecurity practices: obtaining software patches from verified sources, avoiding suspicious documents with “.exe” links, being wary of unknown phone numbers, and clicking only on URLs with clear and legitimate domains. Users should also ensure that websites have valid encryption certificates by checking for a green lock icon in the browser’s address bar before entering sensitive information. By adopting these measures, individuals and organizations can better protect themselves from phishing attacks and other cyber threats, ensuring their online security remains robust.
