Professionals step up fight against coronavirus hackers

As the world continues to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic, a related crisis has emerged.

Hackers are taking advantage of the increased reliance on networks to target critical organizations such as health care groups and members of the public, stealing and profiting off sensitive information and putting lives at risk.

But cyber criminals are increasingly coming up against an army of information security professionals worldwide, who have come together over the past months to fight a quiet daily war online to block the efforts of hackers.

Thousands of professionals step up: One network of these white hat hackers is the nonprofit COVID-19 CTI League, which is made up of more than 1,400 volunteers in 76 countries and 22 different time zones from sectors including information security, telecommunications and law enforcement.

The group’s goal is to thwart efforts by criminal organizations to dismantle critical systems, including those that overworked hospitals rely on to ensure treatment for patients suffering from COVID-19.

Marc Rogers, the executive director of cybersecurity at software group Okta and one of the leaders of the CTI League, told The Hill that the mobilization of internet security professionals during the pandemic made him optimistic about fighting back.

“There is a literal army of infosec people out in the community who are working to protect these establishments,” Rogers said. “We haven’t seen any catastrophic situations yet, and I’m quietly hopeful that that’s because of the proactive work that all of these groups are doing.”

The group was only established in early March but has grown by leaps and bounds as members have quickly joined in the effort to defend vulnerable systems from attack.

Making progress: According to an initial progress report published by the group this week, members have assisted law enforcement in taking down almost 3,000 cybercriminal assets online, and identified more than 2,000 cyber vulnerabilities at hospitals, health care groups and supporting facilities.

The CTI League is not the only new group formed in order to address increasing cyber threats.

C5 Capital helped bring together and form the Cyber Alliance to Defend Our Healthcare last month. The group was formed after cybersecurity portfolio groups managed by C5 began reporting spikes in cyberattacks on both the United Kingdom’s and Sweden’s health systems, and is currently made up of over a dozen top cybersecurity groups lending their skills to defend these networks.

“We were beginning to get calls from all over Europe in particular that there was a significant escalation in cyberattacks from March onward,” C5 Founder Andre Pienaar told The Hill. “We decided we had to do something to help, and launched the Cyber Alliance to Defend Our Healthcare as part of a transatlantic effort to protect the crucial care provided by hospitals and clinics.”

And health care organizations, where IT staffers are overworked and on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic, desperately need these protections.