New worries about ransomware — attacking smartphones

Kaspersky images; click to report the report
Kaspersky images; click to report the report

There’s been a scary increase in successful ransomware attacks against large organizations this year. Specifically, hospitals have found themselves at the mercy of hackers who demand ransom payments to unlock critical system files. Recently, there have been signs that these criminals have moved on to universities, too. The University of Calgary admitted to Canadian media last month that it paid $20,000 ransom “to address system issues.”

But individuals have something new to worry about. A new report from Kaspersky Lab says its detection rate for mobile ransomware — malicious software targeting smartphones and demanding ransoms — quadrupled in one year.

It’s easy to see why phone ransomware would work. Consumers fly into a panic when their phone battery dies; imagine what it’s like to see a message saying your phone is locked, and a $100 payment is required to unlock it.

Kaspersky says some ransomware criminals simply require that mobile victims type in a iTunes gift card number to free the device. I’ve written recently about the increases use of Apple card payments for fraud.

A combination of easy, anonymous payments and off-the-shelf copycatting software tools makes mobile ransomware a new and potentially dangerous threat, both to consumers and to the companies that employ them.

The numbers tell the story: From April 2014 to March 2015, Kaspersky Lab security solutions for Android protected 35,413 users from mobile ransomware. A year later the number had increased almost four-fold to 136,532 users.

It’s unclear from the report how users encounter mobile ransomware in the first place, though at least some get it when visiting porn sites and are tricked into downloading and installing malicious software.

“The extortion model is here to stay,” Kaspersky says in its report. “Mobile ransomware emerged as a follow-up to PC ransomware and it is likely that it will be followed-up with malware targeting devices that are very different to a PC or a smartphone. These could be connected devices: like smart watches, smart TVs, and other smart products including home and in-car entertainment systems. There are a few proof-of-concepts for some of these devices, and the appearance of actual malware targeting smart devices is only a question of time.”

Kaspersly offers these tips to consumers:

Back-up is a must. If you ever thought that one day you would finally download and install that strange boring back-up software, today is the day. The sooner back-up becomes yet another rule in your day-to-day PC activity, the sooner you will become invulnerable to any kind of ransomware.

Use a reliable security solution. And when using it do not turn off the advanced security features which it most certainly has. Usually these are features that enable the detection of new ransomware based on its behavior.

Keep the software on your PC up-to-date. Most widely-used programs (Flash, Java, Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Windows and Office) have an automatic updates feature. Keep it turned on, and don’t ignore requests from these applications for the installation of updates.

Keep an eye on files you download from the Internet. Especially from untrusted sources. In other words, if what is supposed to be an mp3 file has an .exe extension, it is definitely not a musical track but malware. The best way to be sure that everything is fine with the downloaded content is to make sure it has the right extension and has successfully passed the checks run by the protection solution on your PC.

Keep yourself informed of the new approaches cyber-crooks use to lure their victims into installing malware.

If you’ve read this far, perhaps you’d like to support what I do. That’s easy. Sign up for my free email list, or click on an advertisement, or just share the story.




Don’t miss a post. Sign up for my newsletter

About Bob Sullivan 1640 Articles
BOB SULLIVAN is a veteran journalist and the author of four books, including the 2008 New York Times Best-Seller, Gotcha Capitalism, and the 2010 New York Times Best Seller, Stop Getting Ripped Off! His latest, The Plateau Effect, was published in 2013, and as a paperback, called Getting Unstuck in 2014. He has won the Society of Professional Journalists prestigious Public Service award, a Peabody award, and The Consumer Federation of America Betty Furness award, and been given Consumer Action’s Consumer Excellence Award.

2 Comments

  1. Malware that targets mobile devices includes mobile ransomware. A cybercriminal can use mobile virus to lock a smartphone or steal sensitive data from it before requesting payment to release it or restore the data to the owner.

  2. Not all Android ransomware variations encrypt the files on a user’s device, unlike classical ransomware. Instead, this kind of ransomware employs a number of different methods, such as AndroidOS abuse and Android functionality abuse, to prevent a victim from accessing the device. MalLocker.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*


This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.