the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Several individuals and groups are attempting to leverage the COVID-19 pandemic in order to cause panic and scam unsuspecting residents. NJOHSP urges all residents to ensure the validity of information from online platforms and be wary of scams targeting unwitting residents, virtually and physically.
Over the last week, an NJOHSP review found that misinformation has spread in a growing number of private groups and messages, which are difficult for social media companies to moderate. Furthermore, a private tech company identified at least 80 US-based websites posting misleading or false information about the disease, including CDC.news and Science.news.
On March 10, local police in Moorestown (Burlington County) warned residents of people purporting to be from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), specifically that “there have been social media posts regarding individuals going door to door claiming to be from the CDC.”
On March 5, Cybersecurity firm Check Point reported that over 4,000 coronavirus-related domains had been registered since the beginning of 2020, and 3 percent were considered malicious and another 5 percent were suspicious. Additionally, the company reported an increase in phishing attacks to lure victims into unwittingly installing a computer virus under the guise of coronavirus-themed emails containing attachments. Scammers leveraged fake domains such as “cdc-gov.org” instead of the correct “cdc.gov.”
