When you hear about spam, virus and malware attacks, what is the first thing that pops up in your mind? I bet is the image of yourself sitting in front of your desktop PC or laptop computer, feeling frustrated with spam emails, or a virus attack on your system.
However, these days most of the things you can do on your desktop PC or laptop can be done on that miniature computer you carry with you everywhere you go; your smartphone. On desktop PCs and laptops, most people are already aware of the dangers that lurks if you do not install anti- spam, virus, and malware software. Sadly, all cautions seem to be thrown into the air, when it comes to mobile devices. Thus spams, viruses and malwares are having a field day when it comes to targeting mobile devices, and these attacks are on the increase.
According to the latest Kaspersky Lab Security Bulletin, in 2015 cybercriminals increasingly targeted mobile devices. They are increasingly sending emails from mobile devices and notifications from mobile apps containing malware or advertising messages.
They are using new tactics such as sending .apk (Android executive files) and .jar (ZIP archives containing a program in Java). At one point they masked a mobile encryption Trojan behind a file containing updates for Flash Player. When the user launched it, the malware encrypted all images, documents and videos in the mobile devices and displayed a message demanding the user to pay a fee for the files to be decrypted.
“The increased use of mobile devices in our everyday life to exchange messages and data, as well as access and control bank accounts, has also resulted in increased exploitation opportunities for cybercriminals. Mobile malware and fraudulent spam is becoming more popular and efforts to dupe victims are becoming more sophisticated year on year, with the emergence of apps that can be used by cybercriminals both directly (for sending out spam, including malicious spam) and indirectly (via phishing emails). Mobile device users therefore need to be on their guard and remain vigilant, as cybercriminal activities in this area are only likely to increase, along with our reliance on devices”, warns Daria Loseva, Spam Analysis Expert at Kaspersky Lab.
Most of these spams comes from the US (15.2%), with Russia coming in at second place (6.15%), and China and Vietnam in third place (6.12%). As far as targeted country is concerned, Germany was the biggest victim taking in 19.06% of the spam attacks, followed by Brazil with 7.64% and Russia at third place with 6.03% of the spam attacks in 2015.
The Popular Spam Topics for the Year
““Nigerian” fraud used the Ukrainian political situation, the Syrian civil war, the election in Nigeria and the earthquake in Nepal to exploit the kindness and empathy of recipients with believable email content. These emails contained content calling for material support for a person in need.
Although the Olympic games in Brazil has yet to take place, fraudsters have already started to exploit the event, sending emails announcing false lottery wins and asking the recipient to fill in a form with their personal details. In these attacks, emails with pdf attachments, pictures and other graphical elements were designed to fool the spam filters.