Hillicon Valley: FBI sees spike in cyber crime during pandemic | Facebook to alert users exposed to virus misinformation | Bezos says mass testing needed to reopen economy

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Welcome! Follow our cyber reporter, Maggie Miller (@magmill95), and tech reporter, Chris Mills Rodrigo (@chrisismills), for more coverage.

 

HACKERS HAVING A FIELD DAY: 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. 

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 before the COVID-19 pandemic when about 1,000 complaints were received daily.

“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. 

Other countries are involved: 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.

“Countries have a very high interest in information on the virus … such as information on a vaccine,” Ugoretz said. “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.”

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. 

Read more here.

 

FACEBOOK ON THE ALERT: Facebook announced Thursday that it will begin notifying users who have interacted with misinformation about the novel coronavirus.

Users will receive a message in their newsfeed notifying them they have seen a since-deleted post and connecting them to a list of COVID-19 myths that have been debunked by the World Health Organization (WHO).

“We want to connect people who may have interacted with harmful misinformation about the virus with the truth from authoritative sources in case they see or hear these claims again off of Facebook,” the company’s vice president of integrity, Guy Rosen, wrote in a blog post.

The feature will begin working “in the coming weeks.”

Facebook is also adding a new section to its coronavirus information center dedicated to vetted articles that focus on debunking misinformation.

Other actions taken: The social media giant revealed Thursday that during March it applied warning labels on about 40 million posts related to the pandemic, based on roughly 4,000 articles reviewed by its third-party fact checkers.

When posts including those labels appeared on the news feed, users did not go on to view the original content in 95 percent of cases.

Read more on Facebook here.

 

BEZOS CALLS FOR MORE TESTS: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said Thursday that mass coronavirus testing on a global scale will be needed to “get the economy back up and running” amid the pandemic.

“For this to work, we as a society would need vastly more testing capacity than is currently available,” Bezos wrote in his yearly letter to shareholders.

“If every person could be tested regularly, it would make a huge difference in how we fight this virus. Those who test positive could be quarantined and cared for, and everyone who tests negative could re-enter the economy with confidence.”

Bezos’s letter to shareholders also included steps Amazon has taken in response the coronavirus.

The online retail giant has promised to provide face masks and daily temperature checks for warehouse workers, delivery drivers and Whole Foods employees.

Despite the measures, 70 Amazon facilities have had at least one employee test positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

Read more here.

 

DEM PUSHES FCC ON INTERNET ACCESS: Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) urged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to take more aggressive action to ensure Americans have internet access amid the coronavirus pandemic in a letter Thursday.

“Across the nation, Americans are struggling with the new reality of COVID-19 social distancing, with an unprecedented number of Americans reliant on internet connectivity for telework, telehealth, and online learning,” Warner wrote to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai.

“For too many Americans, however, even this challenging new status quo is unattainable: according to the latest figures from the FCC, over 20 million Americans still lack access to meaningful broadband service, with at least 770,000 Virginians currently unserved.”

Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, noted that the FCC has taken steps to expand internet access during the coronavirus pandemic, including encouraging spectrum leases and temporarily waiving the E-Rate and Rural Health Care gift rules.

However, he wrote, “much more work remains to be done.”

“While a number of preexisting broadband programs, such as the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, will help close the broadband gap in the long-term, I encourage you to take action that can enable expanded coverage now.” 

Read more here.

 

MORE FUNDING, PLEASE: Leading tech industry groups on Thursday urged Congress to support efforts to modernize information technology and ward off cybersecurity threats during the COVID-19 pandemic, as Americans move online and networks are put under increasing stress. 

The Internet Association, CompTIA, the Cybersecurity Coalition, the Alliance for Digital Innovation, the Center for Procurement Advocacy and the Information Technology Industry Council sent a letter to congressional leaders strongly urging them to include funding for IT modernization and cybersecurity in the next coronavirus stimulus package.

Companies that are members of the tech groups include Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, Airbnb, AT&T and Mozilla, along with many leading cybersecurity groups. 

“The current national emergency continues to highlight the need for additional IT investments to ensure our nation is able to effectively respond to this crisis,” the groups wrote. 

They advocated for Congress to provide funding to modernize federal agency networks, upgrade IT for state and local governments in order to streamline coronavirus assistance, and ensure investment in cybersecurity as hackers continue to take advantage of the pandemic. 

Funding to improve IT for various agencies was included in the $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package signed into law by President Trump last month. The package included $9.1 million in funding to boost the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity agency, along with $200 million to help the Federal Communications Commission boost telehealth services. 

But the tech groups said these funds are not enough to fully support the pressure put on networks by a spike in working from home and use of online services. 

Read more about their requests here. 

 

A LIGHTER CLICK: Never change Facebook (but do)

 

AN OP-ED TO CHEW ON: COVID-19 is a wake-up call to close the digital divide

 

NOTABLE LINKS FROM AROUND THE WEB: 

Uber’s Paid Sick Leave Policy Is a Perpetually Moving Goal Post (Motherboard / Edward Ongweso Jr.)

Czechs warn hackers are planning cyberattacks on hospitals (Bloomberg / Lenka Ponikelska) 

Biden Is Losing the Internet. Does That Matter? (New York Times / Kevin Roose)

Scammers are masquerading as smart TV owners to fleece advertisers, researchers say (CyberScoop / Jeff Stone) 

Those calendar alerts reminding us of canceled events can cause real anxiety (The Washington Post / Travis Andrews)