Tag: mobile security threats

Intel Security is now calling for improved cybersecurity education resources in the United Kingdom.

Hundreds of thousands of university students in the United Kingdom use no mobile security whatsoever on their smartphones. As a result, they are living their devices – and everything they contain – at a high risk of unauthorized access.

Intel Security is hoping to reach more students with a message of the importance of adequate mobile protection.

This year’s estimates were that there were more than 420,000 students in the United Kingdom headed to university with the start of this school year. However, a new Intel Security poll has pointed out that only half of them will have packed adequate smartphone protection with them when they go. This means that the other half of the university students in the U.K. have no mobile security software installed to protect their devices and their data.

With no mobile security software, these students are placing their devices at a very real risk.

The reason is that among those who took part in the poll, 90 percent said they log onto public WiFi. Those hotspots are accessed both on campus and off campus. This activity places them at a much higher exposure to mobile security threats. Without any protection software, they are essentially an open book for unauthorized parties to read.

Furthermore, according to the most recent data from the McAfee Labs Quarterly Threat Report, mobile malware is increasing at an explosive rate. Year over year, these mobile cybersecurity threats have risen by 150 percent.

On the other hand, while students may not have protected their devices yet, they are willing to learn. University students in the U.K. have expressed a desire to discover more about why having no mobile security is risky. They are also willing to learn more about related issues. Forty eight percent of the 1000 students who participated in the survey said they would be willing to attend an online security seminar if one were available.

According to Nick Viney, Intel Security VP consumer, this is a positive step, “Yet its concerning that many are still opening themselves up to risks unknowingly. When it comes to students’ online safety, we all have a responsibility.”

Lookout has now uncovered a malware that pretends to be any of a range of very popular apps.

Lookout, a mobile security company based in San Francisco, has announced that it has discovered a new type of malware threat to devices running on the Android operating system.

This time, it is a form of malware that disguises itself as certain trusted and well-known applications.

Unfortunately, it actually opens the user up to a considerable mobile security risk as it exposes the device to root attacks. Moreover, once it has made its way into the gadget, it is nearly impossible to remove. Though this doesn’t affect people who download their applications from Google Play, it has been discovered in mobile apps that can be downloaded through third-party app stores. Among the titles the malware pretends to be includes: Facebook, Twitter, Candy Crush, Snapchat, WhatsApp and Google Now.

There were around 20,000 instances of this mobile security threat isolated by Lookout in its research.

As the versions of these popular mobile apps that are infected by the malware have been discovered exclusively in third-party app stores, the firm has stated that people who download exclusively from Google Play can more than likely assume that they are free of this infection.

What makes this mobile malware even more challenging is that the majority of the infected applications still work in the exact same way as the legitimate versions. Therefore, it becomes exceptionally difficult – if not impossible –for a regular user to be able to detect the infected ones and therefore, to know which ones to uninstall. Moreover, when root access to a mobile device has been obtained by way of the malware, the app can automatically download and can fully intertwine itself into the operating system.

This makes it very difficult for an expert to delete it and essentially impossible for an untrained user to remove it. Once the infected app becomes activated, it pushes ads into the device of the user and poses a mobile security threat. Lookout explained that it continues to operate in the background and cannot be uninstalled by the majority of users, either forcing them to buy new devices or to have to take the gadgets to IT professionals to have the malware removed.