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Ugoretz said Thursday to “not read into the timing” of the alert, but that the FBI and other top agencies hoped to “shine a light” on some of the cyber threats the U.S. The FBI was among a group of federal agencies that on Wednesday put out a joint alert warning of North Korean cyber threats, particularly to financial institutions, with the goal to fund North Korean weapons programs and get around international sanctions. “We have certainly seen reconnaissance activity and some intrusions into some of those institutions, especially those who have identified themselves as working on COVID research.” “Countries have a very high interest in information on the virus … such as information on a vaccine,” Ugoretz said. Ugoretz said many of the hackers are from nation states that have a “desire to gain insight” into COVID-19-related research, and that the “rapid shift to telework” has opened up a huge amount of cyber vulnerabilities for hackers to exploit. “We have increased vulnerabilities online, and increased interest from threat actors to exploit those,” Ugoretz said during a webinar hosted by the Aspen Institute on Thursday.
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Tonya Ugoretz, the deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division, said Thursday that the IC3 was receiving between 3,000 and 4,000 cybersecurity complaints each day, a major jump from prior to the COVID-19 pandemic when about 1,000 complaints were received daily.
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The FBI has seen a spike in cyber crimes reported to its Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, as both domestic and international hackers look to take advantage of Americans’ daily activities moving increasingly online.