Letter from Donor Suppor Chair

My name is Kathy Zhu, leader of the Donor Support team at SOAR Foundation. I hope this email finds you well, weathering the COVID-19 crisis with some peace. I am reaching out to you to send greetings to you and your family from all SOAR volunteers.

The Health Officer of multiple counties and states, including California Bay Area where most of the SOAR donors reside, has issued a shelter-in-place or shelter-in-home order, requesting people to stay home to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. People have been relying on Internet to get COVID-19 related news updates, order foods and goods for daily life. As a full time network security engineer, I’d like to share a few tips with you for cyber safety.

FBI has warned of a significant spike in coronavirus scams as cybercriminals continue to exploit the coronavirus pandemic. Please pay special attention to phishing emails. Do not click any hidden link which may download malware automatically, not even the email is from someone you know, since you do not know if the email account has been hacked.

There are lots of coronavirus-tracking apps. A new Android app that promises to deliver up-to-date figures on the coronavirus pandemic includes a strain of malicious software that locks up a user’s phone and demands an extortion fee. The ransomware app, called CovidLock, threatens to erase everything on an infected phone if victims don’t pay $100 in bitcoin within 48 hours. Please do not download any unofficial apps, especially from standalone websites. Even the app is from the Google Play store, that is still possible with malware, since Google may not able to spot it at the first place. Please go to CDC or WHO website to get information.

There are also all sorts of donation scam, please verify the information first before making donation.

This is a difficult time for all. Mental health is more important than ever. My own way to deal with it is to leave time for myself everyday to get charged with positive energy; away from any COVID-19 related news feed, WeChat, Line, or YouTube during this time. I use the time for meditation, gardening, arranging flowers, listening to music or books. I just learned about free Amazon audio book site at https://stories.audible.com/discovery which is free and for all levels. You may like to take advantage of it.

Zhou Xing, a SOAR alumnus in Gansu, China, organized “ship masks to SOAR” among the alumni; so far they have shipped 1500 masks. Due to the shipping quota, 100 masks per shipment per person, they had to ship the masks in 15 packages. Once we receive, we will pass to the donors in need. Please let us know if you need the mask.

This way of living may be the norm for us for a while. Let’s use this time to get connected. The members in the Donor Support team and myself like to get feedback from you, please reply this email to let us know that you and your family are healthy and safe.

Sincerely,

Kathy Zhu
Donor Support