In this episode of the podcast (#181), we’re joined by Shashi Prakash, Chief Scientist at the firm Bolster.ai, to talk about the surge in COVID 19-themed scams and phishing attacks in recent weeks and what individuals and companies can do thwart COVID-themed scams and attacks.

The novel corona virus, COVID 19, is on the move: stalking Americans inside and outside their homes, with more than half a million sickened in the U.S. and 25,000 dead, as of this posting. But Corona virus isn’t just affecting people in the physical world. It’s also having a big impact online, where cyber criminal gangs and fraudsters have jumped on fear of the virus to facilitate phishing attacks and scams involving the sale of personal protective equipment (PPE) including masks, gloves and hand sanitizer.

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Shashi Prakash is the Chief Scientist and Co-Founder at Bolster.ai (fka RedMarlin).

What are some of the COVID scams that are most prevalent and what can businesses and consumers do to protect themselves from falling victim to them?

To find out we invited Shashi Prakash, the Chief Scientist at the security firm Bolster AI (FKA RedMarlin). The company, which uses machine learning technology to identify and track online scams and other illegal behavior, has seen a more than 200% increase in phishing attacks compared with the same period last year, and a flood of COVID-19 themed scams in just the last month.

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To track them, Bolster created a Coronavirus Phishing Scam Tracker that now counts more than 130,000 scams related to COVID and more than 11,000 suspicious domains. I invited Shashi into the studio to talk about the trends that they’re seeing in COVID related scams and how organizations can protect themselves and their workers at a time when hardly anyone is working from an office anymore.

Check out our full conversation above.

As always,  you can check our full conversation in our latest Security Ledger podcast at Blubrry. You can also listen to it on iTunes and check us out on SoundCloud, Stitcher, Radio Public and more. Also: if you enjoy this podcast, consider signing up to receive it in your email. Just point your web browser to securityledger.com/subscribe to get notified whenever a new podcast is posted.