The culmination of mobile attacks has left many citizens at risk and the responsible agencies have curtailed a stifling process that makes it impossible for the victims to get justice. Over 95% of all cases filed do not get the justice they deserve.
To evade the ever-rising number of cyber victims and not become part of the statistics, here are some mobile threats you should know about.
Types Of Attacks On Mobile Devices
To get an understanding of the attacks possible on our mobile devices, I’ll lay down the types of mobile security threats;
- Web-Based threats (Phishing Scams, Browser exploits, Drive-By Downloads)
- Network-Based Threats ( Wi-Fi, Network exploits)
- Application Based Threats (Spyware, Malicious Apps, Malware, Privacy Threat)
- Physical Threats (Theft)
Top 3 Mobile Security Threats
The constant mobile possession has hugely increased cyber threat percentage and problem of information security with attackers using these top three methods to target vulnerable users.
- Phishing
This form of mobile attack evokes the victims’ emotions by triggering them to click on a link purported to come from a reputable organization (usually a financial institution) with a set expiration period.
It’s a social engineering threat delivered mostly through email addresses. This form of fraudulent activity is the most prevalent, with the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center recording double the number of phishing attacks than any other form of cyber attack.
Within a 3-year period, from 2017 to 2020, the number of phishing attacks has increased to over 14%. The most targeted institutions are financial organizations and their employees, from the subordinate to the executive staff.
Forms of phishing include;
- Clone
- Spear
- CEO fraud and whaling
- Voice
- SMS
- Page Hijacking
How Phishing is Done
Through a link manipulation technique, the attacker will either send you an email link, a fake news link that provokes the user to click. Through this guise that a user is clicking on a legitimate website, the phisher is able to observe and retrieve the users’ sensitive information.
- Data Leakage
Data leakage or Data Breach, as commonly known, can occur both maliciously or accidentally. Driven by either political motives or heroism tendency where hackers wear the hat of whistleblowers by exposing unscrupulous dealings of corporations.
Sometimes, they steal an organization’s data and sell it on the dark web or in other cases hold the company hostage by making monetary demands or demand something in line with their interest. Since moving to the digitization era, the data breach has been rampant, making it hard for organizations to evade this malice.
John Chambers, the Cisco CEO, aptly puts it that there are two types of companies, those that are hacked and those unaware that they’ve been hacked. Over a decade ago between 2005 and 2008, over 200 million individual data were exposed costing companies up to $12 million a year to mitigate the fallout and ensure limited damage is done with the predicted cybersecurity spending estimated to be over $1 trillion from $4 million the current cost.
- Unsecured Wi-Fi
When a wireless network transmits data through its airwaves with no security or encryption to protect that data, it’s termed ‘unsecured’. While people are baited by this form of free access to the internet, the majority feel that it’s the network’s sole responsibility to guarantee their safety.
The urge to connect makes users forfeit all logic of doing an inspection before accessing a public network. This thought process and lack of individual responsibility leave people vulnerable to cyberattacks.
Users access their email, social media platform, and even their financial providers, which exposes a lot of their data to cyberattacks. Hackers are able to capture your sensitive information when you access a network that isn’t properly secured or they bait you with an illegitimate network hotspot that they’ve created just so they can access your information once you use their network.
Be On The Lookout
While the threats posed on your daily internet activity via your mobile gadget are evident, you can take the necessary steps to ensure that your data is secure and you don’t fall victim to cyber-attacks. Security threats like identity theft can be so catastrophic either leaving you in huge chunks of debt or even behind bars depending on the activity of the perp.
Author Bio
Ashley Stephan has a daytime job in a stealth FinTech startup. During her free time, she runs a blog at VIGOR.icu. Hobbies: swimming, doing research on the latest gadgets, and binge-watching popular TV shows.
