Privacy, Security & Virus Information

Hackers keep up with trends by attacking apps

These days all the talk is about social media and applications. That’s what makes it hardly surprising that the latest trend among the hackers of the World is to produce smartphone apps that instead of applying actually steal personal information from the unsuspecting user.

Online security experts have pinpointed that the most vulnerable to this kind of attack are Facebook and other social networker users, with recent research showing that almost half of Facebook wall posts will have been tainted by some kind of malicious software.

Cyber criminals are taking advantage of the fact that, despite warnings, surfers feel very secure when clicking on sites such as Facebook, or when they download the latest app on their favourite smartphone, with Google's Android being regarded as being the most susceptible to hacker intrusions.

Currently, internet security experts point out that the variety of malware infecting Androids and other smartphones through Facebook have been specially programmed and graphically designed to be attractive to those who spend their time social networking.

Statistics coming from Google show that around twenty five percent of Facebook users were taken in by a very clever scam through their smart phone. They were duped to clicking on to an innocent and friendly looking link that was displayed on a Facebook status page that would have been especially attractive to the young, naive and curious people who frequent Facebook. The link generated close to thirty thousand clicks, with more than seven thousand of them coming from mobile platforms. Those who fell into the hacker's web promptly found themselves victim to a fairly sophisticated internet fraud.

As the world of internet communication becomes more sophisticated, so internet scammers broaden their scope, investing considerable resources both in terms of time and money, in an effort to access sensitive information.

Everyone who wants to use the web, and not to be used by it, need to realize that such security comes at a price. Both in terms of extra vigilance, as well as ensuring that the most powerful, sophisticated and up to date anti-virus software is in place, not just on the home computer and the laptop, but also on the smart phone which is becoming an increasingly prominent part of the surfer's artillery.

 

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