The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has seized more domains used in phishing attacks, spoofing the official website of a biotech company developing a vaccine for COVID-19. One of the domains seized claimed to sell the emergency antibody cocktail REGEN-COV2 developed by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for the emergency treatment of COVID-19 in November 2020.
However, this site was fraudulent and was used to collect personal information from visitors. This information would then be used for malicious purposes, such as scams, phishing attacks, or even malware. Those who visit the site now will see a message that it has been seized by the federal government and will be redirected to another site for additional information.
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland seized usaregenermedicals[.]com – registered on January 21 – after a cybersecurity officer discovered its malicious nature.
As BleepingComputer reports, four other such malicious domains have been seized in recent months.
Specifically, since December 2020, the US Department of Justice has seized four domains that were used by fraudsters for various malicious purposes, such as scams, phishing attacks, and infecting the targets' computers with malware.
- remdesivirmx [.] com: Seized on March 1, 2021, for collecting personal information of people who wanted to purchase the antiviral drug Remdesivir.
- modernatx [.] shop: Seized on January 15, 2021, for claiming to sell COVID-19 vaccines, forgery of Moderna.
- mordernatx [.] com and regeneronmedicals [.] com: They were seized on December 18, 2020, because they were collecting personal information of people visiting the sites, while spoofing the official Moderna and Regeneron sites.
According to the DoJ, the government's seizure of these sites has prevented third parties from obtaining the names and using them to commit additional crimes, while also preventing third parties from continuing to access the deceptive sites in their current form.
Additionally, Deputy U.S. Attorney Jonathan F. Lenzner stated the following: “The federal government provides the vaccine free of charge to individuals living in the United States. We will continue to prosecute these scammers who are attempting to exploit unsuspecting citizens.”
Notably, over $365 million has been “lost” to COVID-19-related scams so far. According to statistics provided by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), more than 372,000 Americans have reported total financial losses of over $365 million to COVID-19-related scams since the beginning of 2020.
Hackers have also targeted organizations related to COVID-19 vaccine research and development.
Finally, Microsoft discovered domains that are being used in COVID-19-related cybercrime, such as the theft of sensitive information, which is later used in BEC attacks.
