In a statement released Thursday, the WHO said that this week, some 450 email addresses and passwords from active organizations leaked online along with thousands of people working on the new coronavirus response, the Xinhua news agency reports.
"The leaked credentials did not put WHO's systems at risk because the data was not recent. However, the attack impacted an older extranet system, used by current and retired staff as well as partners," he said. .
The organization said it was now migrating affected systems to a more secure authentication system.
The WHO said that scammers posing as their emails have also increasingly targeted the general public to channel donations to a dummy fund rather than the authentic COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund.
The WHO asks the public to be vigilant against fraudulent emails and recommends the use of reliable sources to obtain objective information about COVID-19 and other health problems.
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