When personal and professional informational lives on one mobile device, the risk of malware attacks and huge data breaches rises. As the adoption of bring your own device policy increases, so should employee awareness when it comes to ever-growing cyber threats. To avoid falling victim, here are five Android security threats you need to be aware of as well as how to fend them off.
Unsafe devices
Sometimes, the device itself might not be safe due to faulty production or configuration. In fact, Checkpoint found 36 Android devices earlier this year at a telecommunications company and multinational technology company that were infected out of the box. This means that the infection was not caused by users, but the malware was pre-installed via apps somewhere along the supply chain before users even received them.
Malicious apps
Judy is an Android app, and although it sounds completely harmless, this software is actually designed to infect a device and activate an auto-clicking command used for malicious advertising campaigns. Believe it or not, this malware got 18.5 million downloads.
Information leakage from useful apps
Many applications are installed for legitimate uses. But don’t let that fool you, as these apps can be used to extract confidential information such as contact information from your mobile device. According to recent research, 0.3 percent of the 20 million Android transactions resulted in some level of privacy leakage. This is primarily due to cybercriminals tapping into an organization’s network traffic, which requires skills but isn’t impossible to do.
Banking malware
This is when cybercriminals use phishing windows to overlap banking apps so that they can steal credentials from mobile banking customers. But that’s not all, as cybercriminals can overlap other apps and steal credit card details, incoming mobile transaction authentication number, and even redirect calls. Even worse, file-encrypting features now allow them to simultaneously steal information and lock user files.
One such banking malware that Android users need to look out for is Faketoken. According to Kaspersky Lab, Faketoken is designed to generate fake login screens for more than 2,000 financial applications in order to steal login credentials. The app also displays phishing pages to steal credit card information, can read and send text messages, and even has the ability to encrypt user files stored on a phone’s SD card.
Ransomware
Ransomware is a type of malware that blocks a device and demands for a payment in order for the device to be unlocked. The latest ransomware, WannaCry, spread like a wildfire and greatly affected the global healthcare industry. Ransomware continues to be a cyberciminal’s weapon of choice and attacks targeting Android devices have increased by over 50 percent.
If you think ransomware is bad enough, ransomworms can be your worst nightmare. Basically, it’s ransomware attached to a network that copies itself to every computer on a local network it could reach with no warning whatsoever.
All this sounds horrific, but the worst is yet to come if you don’t act fast. Having said that, we’ve rounded up some security best-practices that will help keep your Android devices secure:
- Enforce device passcode authentication
- Monitor mobile device access and use
- Patch mobile devices quickly
- Forbid unapproved third-party application stores
- Control physical access to devices
- Conduct application security assessment to ensure compliance
- Implement an incident response plan for lost or stolen mobile devices
While it’s easy to turn a blind eye against cyber threats, the question is are you willing to take that chance? If you’re looking for an advanced security solution to keep your Android device safe, give us a call and we’ll be happy to help.
Employees today are working under tight timelines, but thanks to bring your own device policies (BYOD), they can access critical files and applications using their mobile device and get work done from anywhere. But BYOD can be a double-edged sword to those not vigilant about cyber attacks. If you’re using an Android device, here are five security threats you need to know about.
Over the years phishing — a social engineering attack that uses seemingly innocuous emails to trick victims into giving away personal information or clicking a malicious link — has grown in sophistication and scale. In order to put a stop to these scams, Google has made some security enhancements for Gmail. Here how the new anti-phishing features work.
Although hackers continue to develop new viruses and bug exploits, the most effective weapon in their arsenal is a simple email. All a would-be cybercriminal has to do is write a convincing message (or pretend to be a trustworthy entity) to persuade a victim to download a malware-ridden file or surrender their personal information. This ruse is known by many as a phishing scam. To protect users from these attacks, Google recently released some new anti-phishing features for Gmail. Read on below to find out more.
Cybercriminals have been relentless throughout 2017. In the past couple of months, hackers discovered new malware strains and software vulnerabilities that have overwhelmed thousands of businesses worldwide. But despite these new attacks, hackers still have an old, yet effective trick up their sleeves: phishing scams. To this day, sending fraudulent emails to steal sensitive information or spread a virus is still being used by the most advanced hackers. Luckily Google rolled out some new security features for Gmail users.
Business owners barely had time to acquaint themselves with virtualization before the next trend stormed onto the scene. Although container and virtualization applications both allow users to divvy up software and hardware more efficiently, containers have many advantages over virtualized machines. There are a number of misunderstandings though, and it’s time to set the record straight.
Business owners stand to gain a lot by taking the time to understand emerging IT trends. In the case of containers, it’s an opportunity to reduce costs, increase hardware efficiency, and improve data security. One of the best ways to learn about containers is to address the misconceptions about them.
Virtualization technology and container technology are confusing topics in their own right, and comparing and contrasting them is even harder. Before you can really get into the weeds about how containers differ from virtualization, it’s best to clear up some of the misleading information surrounding how the two technologies work.
Since its release back in 2015, Windows 10 continues to see updates and new features. This time, users are greeted with some new keyboard shortcuts that will make life easier. So without further ado, here are our top picks that can be extremely helpful to your daily operations.
Technology is all about making lives easier, and something as small as keyboard shortcuts can save you a lot of time. If you’re operating on a Windows 10 computer, here are some new keyboard shortcuts that you’ve probably been waiting for.
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