Criminal organizations want to use the coronavirus crisis to penetrate deeper into the business network. The police in Rome warned of this in a report published on Wednesday. Mafia clans would try to access the funds that the government makes available for the economy.
Mafiosi would try to get public contracts through corruption. Italy was the first country to set up a task force to develop strategies against the mafia intrusion into the legal economy during the Corona period.
Police also warned of the increasing aggressiveness of cyber criminals in times of the pandemic. In the first ten months of 2020, the number of virtual attacks in Italy increased by 353 percent compared to the same period in 2019. The number of cyber crime reports soared 104 percent.
The health system and institutions active in research have also come into focus. The goal of the hackers is to obtain confidential information about the pandemic, as well as about the development of vaccines and therapies. Some of the most important institutions that treat Covid patients have been victims of “cyber extortion”. These institutions received demands for the payment of amounts in crypto currencies to restore their IT systems.
