In the current state of emergency, scammers work to make a profit. They may try to make profit of the virus spread itself, or they may try to exploit that many of us feel anxious and take less caution than we usually do. Working from a home office can make us even more vulnerable.

One of the most common type of scam is an email with attachments or links. The purpose is usually to get us to buy amazing anti-corona products, transfer money, or submit credit card or bank account information. As a worst case scenario a scammer can take control of our computer or phone if we reply to the wrong email or click the wrong link.

We urge everyone to be very cautious of emails that arrive unexpectedly or that seem suspicious in any way. This particularly applies to unknown senders, but also to what seems at first glance to be trustworthy sources like government officials or banks. A person who is reasonably skilled can combine any sender name with a false email address, and so trick us into replying or clicking a link.

If you receive a suspicious email, our advice is that you carefully check the real sender address: Hover your cursor over the name of the sender and look at the domain name of the address hidden behind the name. The domain name is the part that follows the @ sign, i.e. 'norid.no' if the full address is info@norid.no. If this is a Norwegian domain name, you can find information about who the domain name belongs to in our lookup service.

Other actors also warn against increasing vulnerability in the ongoing state of emergency (links to Norwegian texts only):

Published: 2 April 2020
Updated: 29 September 2020