With the significant growth of internet usage, people increasingly share their personal information online. As a result, an enormous amount of personal information and financial transactions become vulnerable to cybercriminals. Phishing is an example of a highly effective form of cybercrime that enables criminals to deceive users and steal important data. Since the first reported phishing attack in 1990, it has been evolved into a more sophisticated attack vector. At present, phishing is considered one of the most frequent examples of fraud activity on the Internet. Phishing attacks can lead to severe losses for their victims including sensitive information, identity theft, companies, and government secrets. This article aims to evaluate these attacks by identifying the current state of phishing and reviewing existing phishing techniques. Studies have classified phishing attacks according to fundamental phishing mechanisms and countermeasures discarding the importance of the end-to-end lifecycle of phishing. This article proposes a new detailed anatomy of phishing which involves attack phases, attacker’s types, vulnerabilities, threats, targets, attack mediums, and attacking techniques. Moreover, the proposed anatomy will help readers understand the process lifecycle of a phishing attack which in turn will increase the awareness of these phishing attacks and the techniques being used; also, it helps in developing a holistic anti-phishing system. Furthermore, some precautionary countermeasures are investigated, and new strategies are suggested.

The COVID-19 pandemic provided a much-needed sanity check for IoT-inspired frameworks and solutions. IoT solutions such as remote health monitoring and contact tracing provided support for authorities to successfully manage the spread of the coronavirus. This article provides the first comprehensive review of key IoT solutions that have had an impact on COVID-19 in healthcare, contact tracing, and transportation during the pandemic. Each sector is investigated in depth; and potential applications, social and economic impact, and barriers for mass adaptation are discussed in detail. Furthermore, it elaborates on the challenges and opportunities for IoT framework solutions in the immediate post-COVID-19 era. To this end, privacy and security concerns of IoT applications are analyzed in depth and emerging standards and code of practices for mass adaptation are also discussed. The main contribution of this review paper is the in-depth analysis and categorization of sector-wise IoT technologies, which have the potential to be prominent applications in the new normal. IoT applications in each selected sector are rated for their potential economic and social impact, timeline for mass adaptation, and Technology Readiness Level (TRL). In addition, this article outlines potential research directions for next-generation IoT applications that would facilitate improved performance with preserved privacy and security, as well as wider adaptation by the population at large.

While the world is preoccupied in its struggle with the Coronavirus pandemic, cyber-criminals are busy every day, spreading their own viruses, by phishing emails, data breaches, frauds, denials of service, and taking advantage of the vulnerabilities created by this crisis. In many ways, we, as a nation, are handing over our data without realizing it, without fully thinking it through or even being aware of cyber threats, which will ultimately have a tremendous impact on governments and citizens both personally and at work. The goal of this paper is to investigate the correlation between the cyber-attacks before the coronavirus and during the coronavirus in order to build an understanding of what is happening. To optimize cyber security and provide effective ways to tackle cyber security attacks during COVID-19 or something similar, we need to consider extra precautions and take a more secure approach to protection. To minimize the universal risks of data breaches and other cyber incidents, we need to enforce practical steps to deal with and if possible limit those risks. This requires not only thoughtful consideration but also a good understanding of the opportunities that COVID-19 provides to cybercriminals. The aim of this research paper is to investigate the growth of and reasons for the increase of cyber-attacks during the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to make better cyber security decisions, we need to address and maximize the level of cyber security awareness and precaution taken during COVID-19. A set of practical steps to minimize the risk of cyberattack is provided to compensate for the vulnerabilities associated with COVID-19.

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Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) provide a flexible and low-cost technology to efficiently deliver broadband services to communities. In a WMN, a mesh router is deployed at each house, which acts both as a local access point and a relay to other nearby houses. Since mesh routers typically consist of offthe-shelf equipment, the major cost of the network is in the placement and management of Internet Transit Access Points (ITAP) which act as the connection to the internet. In designing a WMN, the aim is to minimize the number of ITAPs required whilst maximizing the traffic that could be served to each house. A multi-objective optimization algorithm is investigated to solve the WMN infrastructure placement problem, using crossover and mutation operators. A simulation based analysis is used to demonstrate the benefit of the proposed approach.