coronavirus marketing and malware

Scott King's
Newsletter

This is a weekly newsletter containing my notes from the past week and what I saw that was interesting in and around tech marketing.

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Howdy,

The coronavirus is bringing out the marketers - good marketers and bad marketers with bad intentions. Cybercriminals use global events like the pandemic, The Olympics, and World Cup to push malware and scams. And, they are really effective.

Be cautious when downloading apps claiming to track the virus. Many times you are allowing unnecessary permissions on your phone. Or, you are downloading ransomware.

Enjoy working from home.

Cheers,

Scott

Noteworthy Articles

McKinsey & Company has a great series on how the business climate will react to the economic slowdown. There are resources for business, leadership, and remote working. The articles are very informative and beautifully designed.

Apple updated Siri to help people who ask if they have the coronavirus - CNBC

Visualization | How different global regions are handling quarantining - via @yurivish on Observable

How our cellphone location data can save us from a COVID-19 recession - Wired

A new app would say if you’ve crossed paths with someone who is infected - Technology Review

Coronavirus malware and phishing

Iran Launched an App That Claimed to Diagnose Coronavirus. Instead, It Collected Location Data on Millions of People. - I placed the AC19 app in our advanced application analysis engine and found several warnings in the reports including:

The application uses a method to retrieve the last known location of the device in the event that the location services are not available. This could lead to the developer obtaining location of all users.
The app uses a method to blindly load all apps and JAR files located in a directory. Malicious parties can abuse this function.
More on Vice.com

Mobile Coronavirus Tracking App is Ransomware - The CovidLock Android App that gives access to a Coronavirus map tracker and that appears to provide tracking and statistical information about COVID-19 is ransomeware. Domaintools.com

New Thanos RaaS/ransomware builder advertised on hacking forums - Link

U.S. government, tech industry discussing ways to use smartphone location data to combat coronavirus - The U.S. government is talking with tech companies and health experts about how they can use location data gleaned from Americans’ phones to combat the novel coronavirus, including tracking whether people are keeping one another at safe distances to stem the outbreak. Washington Post

Ransomware deployment trends - Research from FireEye

I don't believe it

The kids are cramping my style and workspace.

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