PureVPN Warns About Cybersecurity Threats Surrounding Australia Bushfire Online Donations

While the world is donating to help end the devastation in Australia, cybercriminals are taking advantage of the situation by targeting vulnerable donation websites - warns PureVPN.

Australia has been devastated by bushfires in the past few months. According to some estimates, over 18.6 million hectares, and over 5,900 buildings have been destroyed by the bushfires that have spread all over the continent. Twenty-nine people have been killed by the fires, and billions of animal species are affected, and some may be driven to extinction.

After seeing these horrors unfold, people from around the world have come forward to help end this crisis. Thousands of concerned people have donated as much as they can to charity services that are busy dealing with the crisis, and more donations are coming in as time passes.

But, while the world donates to charitable organizations that are at the forefront of ending the bushfire crisis, hackers and cybercriminals are showing their inhumane sides by stealing donations from multiple websites.

As alerted by PureVPN, cybercriminals are using Magecart to hack into donation websites. Magecart is actually a malicious JavaScript that is added to the checkout pages of websites and donation websites. Any information that is added on these pages, including any credit card information, is sent to domains controlled by hackers and cybercriminals.

This malicious credit card skimmer script is called ATMZOW, and it is easy to spot them out by just checking the source code of these webpages.

Malwarebytes has recently reported that many of the compromised websites have already been shut down by the owners. However, the code might still be active on many of them, and it would continue to collect payment information from donors.

Being a cybersecurity brand, PureVPN felt the need to alert people to be vigilant of any cybercriminal activity going on. The VPN brand has previously reported on similar issues in the past, which include the WannaCry crisis and other similar cybersecurity issues. 

Source: PureVPN

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