Smartphones next on cyber attack list
Criminals continue hunt for digital prey
Some cyber criminals who disseminate viruses and malware in attempts to hijack computers are beginning to shift their focus.
Your smartphone may be their next target.
PC users have learned to be constantly vigilant to the threat of viruses, which attack relentlessly, slow down computers and potentially put valuable personal information at risk.
Windows computers will continue to be targeted going forward but cyber thieves are casting a wider net in the hunt for digital prey.
This past year, hundreds of thousands of Apple computers — which had long been thought to be immune to viruses — were hit with the socalled Flashback or Fakeflash malware. Apple machines had been free from attack for so long that the computer giant brazenly stated on its website that “it doesn’t get PC viruses.” You won’t find that claim online anymore. Now Apple only says its computers are “built to be safe.”
It’s unclear how much Apple computers will continue to be targeted in the near future, but experts say 2013 may be the year that smartphones come under heavier attack.
A few months ago, the Federal Bureau of Investigation issued a warning to U.S. citizens about growing smartphone threats, named Loozfon and FinFisher, on Android devices.
The FBI was alerted to mobile websites that claimed to offer work-at-home job opportunities. A link on the fraudulent websites triggered an attempt to download Loozfon on an Android phone, which steals data from a user’s address book.
FinFisher is a far more sophisticated threat, which can essentially take over a phone, allowing it to be controlled and monitored remotely. Hackers can capture images of what is displayed on the phone’s screen, record what users type in, and listen to phone calls. The program, which was originally designed for government and law enforcement agencies before being co-opted by nefarious groups, can be run on Android devices as well as iPhones, BlackBerrys, Windows and Symbian phones.
The good news is that hackers have yet to begin aggressively targeting average consumers in North America, said Seth Hardy of the Citizen Lab, a research group based out of the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto.
“The risk is still pretty low but that doesn’t mean it’s always going to be that way, it’s just still a relatively new space,” Hardy said. “The moment people start to figure out how to take advantage of it for money is when we’ll see a lot more of it targeting the average user.”
The Android platform — which happens to the most popular globally — is the most under attack. According to a recent report by security firm F-Secure, more than 51,000 different threats targeting Android devices were discovered during the third quarter of the year.