Consider this scenario: Saturday morning, the beginning of your weekend, you are lazing and enjoying your hot cup of tea…and there comes your better half, with a list of bills to pay and grocery and clothes shopping for you to finish! Is your weekend ruined? Not really- because your handy smartphone with multiple useful applications allows you to finish all these tasks online within minutes…but were your transactions secure? 90% of the top mobile banking applications have been found to have serious security flaws. As per the Consumers and Mobile Financial Services 2014, mobile usage saw a huge increase in 2013, with 87% of the US population registering as mobile users, out of which 61% used smartphones. But only 45% of these were comfortable using their phones for financial transactions due to the fear of phone hacking or their apps being infected by malware/viruses. Securing your mobile applications is not an option anymore but a necessity.
Unfortunately, their fear is not baseless. Recently discovered malicious Android application, HijackRAT, is the latest in the list of OS malware, which are targeting mobile banking users. This newest entrant, binds together the old and the new hijacking techniques, into a single piece of advanced malware and masks itself as a “Google Service Framework.” This malicious application, makes a deadly cocktail of private data theft, banking credential theft and spoofing, and remote access into a single unit, as opposed to traditional malware, which can perform only one of these functions.
HijackRAT Malware’s features
This highly advanced malware, hands over the control of the infected device to the hackers and:
Presence of such malware acts as deterrents for the various mobile users. Concern over the security of the technology is high amongst them and a mere 2% believe that mobile banking is “very safe”.
Can you be mobile as well as secure?
Being aware of the different mobile security issues can help you look for solutions that can prevent them. The most common ways in which a device gets infected with malware are bad apps, malicious websites, fake links on social network sites, spurious messages and insecure network connection. Simple steps can protect you against malware:
Let us help you validate how secure is your mobile application
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This post was last modified on November 8, 2023 16:19
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