Phishing: Its Occurrence During the Covid-19 Pandemic

The Corona Virus 19 has completely spread in the world, the people have a hard time interacting with each other physically. COVID-19 has closed down a lot of opportunities for the people but had opened a big chance for phishers to attack the people. Phishing is a cybercrime wherein a phisher pretends to be someone, a well-known company or individual, or an employee of the government or certain organization which mainly focuses on stealing information from the people and using it to get money from them. Phishing rates increase during a certain time of the year, may it be a holiday break, a time of natural disaster, and an outbreak. At this time, COVID-19 has given great damage to the people, from healthcare to the profits of small business owners. Phishers take advantage of the pandemic. People are more indulged in the cyber world because it is the only means of communication nowadays, and since the pandemic has closed down a lot of facilities and establishments people are having a hard time finding something that can make money. Phishers pretend to be someone from a well-known company to lure people into giving them information that will later on help the phishers to hack their personal accounts or bank accounts. In the year 2019, phishing is one of the cybercrimes that has been committed all over the world, but it has increased in rapidly phase during the pandemic making it the top committed cybercrime in the Philippines by 2021 with over 59% of phishing cases that were reported during the outbreak. In this study, the researchers aimed to determine the number of phishing cases that were reported during the COVID-19 pandemic in Lucena City. Specifically, the researchers determined the electronic platforms that the respondents used during working hours and the different types of Phishing they encountered during working days. To acquire the data, the researchers randomly selected fifty (50) respondents from technology companies in Lucena and the Philippine National Police Lucena department, specifically the researchers selected thirty (30) respondents from PNP Lucena and twenty (20) respondents from a technology company located in Lucena City. The researchers used the probability sampling method. The study used a quantitative approach for the data gathering wherein the researchers distributed the questionnaires to the respondents, consisting of three parts. The results of the study were presented in a statistical method. According to the findings of the study, the most utilized form of electronic mail is Google mail or Gmail and for the most used social media, most of the respondents answered Facebook. In terms of phone calls and text messages, both police officers and IT employees use their office phones instead of their phones during work. According to the respondents, spam emails, calls, and text messages are very common in their field. Most of the respondents agreed on putting a protective firewall in their designated internet server to avoid phishing attacks at work. The results concluded that most police officers and tech company employees use Google Mail or Gmail when sending files from one officer to another. These include reports and important documents. In addition to this, Facebook is the social media platform that police officers frequently use when spreading news and updates about the organization to the public likewise tech company employees use this platform to communicate with the public, for communication, most of the police officers and tech company employees used the official number or landline number of the police station and office rather than their phone numbers.