Covid-19 disinformation has made it significantly harder to stop the virus, first as it killed hundreds of thousands of people around the world in 2020, and now as public-health officials struggle to get vaccine jabs into as many patients’ arms as they can before the virus mutates and spreads further.
As the World Health Organization said in a September 2020 statement, the Covid-19 pandemic has been accompanied by an “infodemic”: The same technology used to keep people informed and safe has been used to undermine attempts to reduce the spread of the disease.
In a recent interview for The Parallax View, our Security Consultant, Sarka Pekarova, elaborated on her RSA Conference talk "Let's Flatten the Infodemic Curve" and her biggest pandemic-related concerns.
Sarka pointed out that people who are most susceptible to disinformation lack enough skepticism—but can be taught to be more critical. A good place to start flattening the infodemic curve, she says, is reading WHO’s seven points for combating false information spread by people you know.
“Social engineering teaches that whatever you’re seeing or hearing, [your] perception of reality is different,” Sarka stated And social engineers could use that against you. “Teaching techniques such as reading beyond headlines, checking a post’s date, and thinking about what kind of an emotional response is warranted, can go a long way. We can encourage people to go deeper, do more research, go out of their box.”
