According to official sources/a statement issued by the SRI, these days a malware campaign targeting mobile phones is underway with the aim of obtaining bank credentials from users' mobile terminals. In this campaign, SMS messages are sent that appear to be sent by a real service provider, most often a courier company. People who receive the SMS are invited to access a link to check the delivery status of a previously placed order. The text within the message can be "Your package is on its way, track it here."
To protect yourself from malware, we recommend that you carefully check every message you receive, either as an email or as an SMS.
We share with you some of the most important recommendations of specialists to reduce the risk of being a victim of a cyber attack:
• avoid accessing links or opening attachments from unknown sources
• carefully check the sender, message content, links and files received
• periodically check the permissions granted to already installed mobile applications, and when installing new applications, grant permissions on a timely basis and according to needs
• use anti-virus solutions and make sure they are up-to-date
• make sure you are using the latest version of the operating system compatible with the system you are using.
If you receive such a message, but have not clicked to be redirected to a page or have not even opened it, the security of your data has not been compromised. If you suspect that your device has been infected, it is recommended to reset it to factory settings and renew passwords.
Malware (malicious software) is code created by malicious people, also called cybercriminals, which is used to compromise cyber security for various reasons.
Thus, depending on the purpose for which they were created, there are several types of malware:
- banking trojans – aim to empty bank accounts
- ransomware – encrypts our data and privacy and we will have to pay some form of ransom to get it back
- cryptocurrency mining malware
- adware – popups, ads in unusual places. It records user activity also acting as spyware
- bot – DDos attacks (access to servers), website indexing
- rootkits – remotely access a device
- spyware – they track the user's activity without his knowledge and record browsing history, search history and bank details (log in information, bank card data). Through another type of malware, the keylogger, all this information is transmitted to the malware creator.
- trojan (horse) – as its name suggests, this type of malware enters the system disguised as a normal program or file and has several uses depending on the way and purpose in which it was programmed
- virus – is a type of malware that can copy itself and attach itself to other files in order to manage to spread to other devices. The virus can only act if the human user activates it and can permanently destroy the device it was installed on (?).
- worms – are similar to viruses, but unlike them, they can spread over the network without the human user participating. The purpose of a worm is to load web servers, consuming bandwidth.