Thursday, March 16, 2023

Hackers shifting cybercrime focus towards smart phones and tablets

All these days, we have seen cyber criminals infiltrating networks and taking down computers. But after the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, the focus of hackers has shifted more towards the smart phones with more phishing and social engineering attacks recorded in a 2nd quarter of 2022.

Embedding malicious links in social media, emails, apps and SMS is making hackers target tech savvy individuals, thus taking this crime industry to a multi-billion-dollar business. Mainly such attacks are often launched by taking poor device security and software vulnerabilities into consideration. Though the understanding of the end user and his/her mental process of ducking such attacks is also taken into deliberation.

According to the Jurgen Stock, the Interpol Secretary, the global cost of cyber crime is said to reach $10.5 trillion by 2025, and among the guestimate, half of the amount is expected to be made through phishing targeting mobiles and tablets.

A phishing attack is nothing but a malicious link pasted in an email, SMS, or social media account, that when clicked, leads the victim to a malevolent website designed to steal personal details or bombard the smart phone with a spyware or such espionage tools.

And as more individuals are using personal mobile phones for office use, it can also compromise business security via personal devices- especially in the realm of remote work or WFH culture.

Agility, awareness and alertness are the only mantra to mitigate risks. Parallelly using an antivirus software on the mobile, adding a password to sensitive folders and by not clicking on links send by unknown senders can help guaranty highest level of security to a smart phone.

 

The post Hackers shifting cybercrime focus towards smart phones and tablets appeared first on Cybersecurity Insiders.


March 17, 2023 at 10:51AM

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