Scammers target lockdown Britain

THE boss of BT has urged customers to ‘be on your guard’ after cyber criminals launched a wave of scams targeting customers staying at home.

In a shameless bid to take advantage of the coronavirus crisis, criminals are offering fake testing kits, posing as government representatives and even fraudulently claiming they are collecting donations on behalf of charities.

Philip Jansen, the telecoms group’s chief executive, said his company already protected customers from more than 4,000 cyber attacks per day but that there had been a spike in extra activity in recent weeks.

His comments come after spy agency GCHQ warned that foreign states – believed to include China, Russia and Iran – have launched opportunistic cyber attacks on Britain’s research and medical institutions during the coronavirus pandemic in a bid to steal information.

Jansen, 53, (pictured) told the Mail: ‘Unfortunately, the coronavirus crisis has created a new currency for cyber criminals and they are not shy in taking advantage of it in a really sad way.’

He appealed to customers ‘to be on your guard, because these guys are smart’.

Jansen added: ‘They will telephone and they will send you official-looking emails that no one can stop – BT cannot stop those activities – because they involve physical people sending them.’

So-called ‘phishing’ attacks are when criminals try to obtain your personal information, like usernames, passwords or credit card details, by disguising themselves as a trustworthy person or business. New ones being circulated by cyber criminals, by phone and by email, attempt to entice people with the promise of ‘free coronavirus test kits’ and ‘government insurance’.

Others try to intimidate the receiver by claiming to be a healthcare provider and demanding payment for treatment that a relative has received for coronavirus.

A BT spokesman added: ‘Common scams include pretending to be your employer, the Government, energy companies, broadband providers, banks and even the NHS.’

Hallmarks of scam emails include those with ‘URGENT’ in the subject line, spelling errors or unusual spellings of words in email addresses, attachments that you do not recognise, phone numbers that do not match those on a company’s website and email addresses that change when you hover your mouse cursor over them.

If emails look suspicious, they can be forwarded to the National Cyber Security Centre’s new service report@phishing.gov.uk.