Smartphone Threats By Malicious Software And Viruses

The life of human beings has swiftly changed since the innovation of mobile devices. Customers greatly depend on cell phones for organizing their day-to-day activities.

In the earlier days, the internet, intranet and the internal corporate networks were separate entities. But the scenario has changed and powerful mobile devices are capable of carrying out multi-functions like accepting and sending data, e-mails and performing various activities like social networking, banking, and gaming, downloading of music and videos and a lot more.

In the middle the year 2010, there was a prediction from Morgan Stanley, that by the year 2012, the demand for smart phones will exceed the total number for personal computers and notebook PCs. Smart phones are comparatively inexpensive and more compact for use like sending and receiving electronic mails, storing data and documents, delivering presentations and instant access to the internet.

Malicious software and viruses were already posing a threat to the cell phone devises, even before the smart phones were introduced to the market. In the year 2009 itself, certain malicious applications were running, which were capable of intruding into financial accounts, manipulating data, auction listings and shopping accounts linked to credit cards.

Attackers were installing malwares on the cell phone devices which increased by 45 percent by 2010.They were spreading in the forms of rogue text messages, fictitious billing scams and other similar malicious forms. Those were the days when users were falling prey to such scandalous activities helplessly, with no alternatives to escape.

Basically this was also for the reason that they were almost ignorant of the mobile threats. There was an incident in which a developer had hacked about 400 iTunes accounts In June 2010. In another incident, a data site in China was found transmitting suspicious application that was downloaded by 4.6 million android users.

Mobile devices and corresponding applications were designed without security features by several manufacturers, to ensure multi functionality and easy marketability of their products. New operating systems have become vulnerable to malwares, with the help of which cyber criminals misuse the devices for their secret operations like sending spasms and recording keystrokes to steal bank account details.

Malwares are being used by the organized crime groups for phishing, and spear-phishing attacks. The Man-in the- browser (MITB) attack leverages a Trojan- horse simply known as “Trojan”, a malicious software they surreptiously install on the mobile devices. It resides concealed on the user’s device and wakes up when the phone is used to visit a target site.

It functions by capturing and modifying information by filtering the communication between the user- interface and the internet. The users or businesses are looted of their funds by such malicious attacks by the hackers. This also results in loss of reputation of the business firms. Mobile devices become easily prone to malicious attacks, more for the reason that the applications to the devices are sold by third party stores, making them vulnerable to malwares.

There are no certification rules for such software applications. The mobile users who generally check the e-mails received on their systems click on the fraudulent messages instantly without knowing the genuineness and get trapped in predicaments caused by the notorious soft wares.