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The inevitable coronavirus-inspired cyber-attacks are stepping up. Are you ready?

They’re not very sophisticated, but they’re working: Watch and learn how to fight back

Webcast You’ve probably had the COVID-19 coronavirus social-engineering scams quietly filtering into, hopefully, your junk folder by now. Featuring anything from bogus medical research with malware-laden URLs to one-to-one approaches offering fake vaccines, it’s not taken very long.

While it makes a change from exclusive offers to help transport millions in lost wealth from Ghana to Switzerland, or demands to hand over Bitcoin to retain sovereignty over your “interesting” pornographic preferences, there’s a real danger with crooks pivoting to exploiting the coronavirus pandemic.

The problem is that, either by accident or design on the parts of the attackers, the sheer scale and immediacy of virus outbreak means some of us can't help but be moved by the emotional and mental toll on ourselves and others, which scammers can exploit.

A quick click to "help" a "health survey" here, or following a link to a store supposedly selling masks when there are none in real-life supply, can be driven by acts of kindness or downright desperation – and neither of these feelings are what we’re used to dealing with when sitting down to check our corporate email.

This means spam, spoofs, phishing and whaling attacks all have a much higher chance of hitting.

Luckily, malware, email security, and social-engineering experts Mimecast are joining us for our next webcast on June 17 at 1100 BST, and will be only too happy to dispense some wisdom on how to tackle this particularly nasty new flavour of threat.

Mimecast’s Thom Bailey will sit down with The Reg’s Tim Phillips, explaining what sort of coronavirus-based opportunities may be sneaking through into your inbox, and how to spot them. He’ll also focus on how email security can be stepped up for employees still working remotely in lockdown conditions.

There will also be a conversation around how, as "the new normal" becomes ever-more normal, an organisation can begin planning the best security arrangements for long-term homeworking, as society prepares to get back on its feet at its own pace.

Sign up for the webcast, brought to you by Mimecast, right here.

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