Beware of fake COVID-19 vaccine registration app, check out list

With 4,205 COVID-related deaths in the last 24 hours, India reported another grim record of the highest single-day death toll in one day, as per data from the union health ministry. The last record was reported on May 7, with 4,187 deaths. A total of 3,48,421 new COVID-19 cases and 3,55,338 discharges were reported in the last 24 hours, taking the country's total positive cases so far to 2,33,40,938.

The vaccination campaign is in full swing. Vaccination is being registered through CoWIN, government’s official portal. But there are also many difficulties in booking vaccination slots. Meanwhile, hackers have become active and are taking advantage of this and are trapping people.

People are now being targeted by fake messages. It has been reported that a fake SMS message is in circulation that falsely claims to offer an app to let users register for COVID-19 vaccine in India. The text messages contain link to a website to potential victims. As soon as the user clicks on this link, his data goes to the hacker. Which can cause them a great deal of damage.

The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN) has issued an alert. "The SMS carries a link that installs the malicious app on Android-based devices, which essentially spreads itself via SMS to victims' contacts," the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team or CERT-In said in a public advisory issued on Saturday. It added that the "app also gains unnecessary permissions that attackers could leverage to acquire user data such as contact list."

Some of its malicious android app under circulation are: Covid19.apk; Vaci__Regis.apk; MyVaccin_v2.apk; Cov-Regis.apk and Vccin-Apply.apk.

The advisory said that the only "official" online link to register for coronavirus vaccination in the country is the portal-- http://cowin.gov.in.
Earlier, a similar fake message, link went viral. It promised free registration for vaccinations.