Cybersecurity criminals and scammers are ramping up their efforts to target vulnerable employers and workforces. Since January the FTC has received more than 7,800 fraud complaints from consumers related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite having to change its own procedures, the FTC has been publishing guidance on COVID-19 scams and also sending out warning letters to sellers of false treatments.
In early January, Andrew Smith, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, published a blog post detailing how the the agency had been working to improve the clarity of FTC orders in data security cases over the past year. It claims that it has made improvements reflected in seven data security-related orders it announced during 2019.
