Business News Holding

Tag: android-smartphones

  • FBI Warns Android Users of Malware Risk

    The news arrived from the FBI via the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) division, warn the owners of Android smartphones about the appearance of new malware targeting this category of devices.

    According to IC3 – the organization responsible for investigating allegations of criminal activities in the online environment, "Loozon" and "FinFisher" are the latest known versions of these forms of malware, each with a slightly different operation mode.

    One of the strategies used to attract victims involves displaying a message that the phone owner is lured with job offers that involves working from home, at a substantial salary and offered in exchange for sending emails. The message contains a link that leads to a website infected with Loozon, the user being instructed to click on the link for more information about the job offer. Once infection has occurred, the malicious app extracts all the information stored in the address book along with the infected phone number.

    FinFisher is a form of spyware that can take control over certain parts of the mobile phone, so that once infection is produced, the device can be controlled and monitored remotely, regardless of the location of the victim. Infection with FinFisher malware can occur when the user accesses using the Web browser a website or an infected link, or opens a text message disguised as an Android update.

    IC3 provides some recommendations for protecting mobile phones, such as turning on the encryption feature in order to protect personal data in case of loss or theft, installing antivirus software for the smartphone, creating an access password and avoiding using untrusted public wireless networks.

  • 2012 Brings 2.5 Million New Viruses. The Main Target: Android Smartphones

    2012 will bring a total of over 2.5 million new viruses, a marked increase in malware dedicated to mobile devices and attacks against large organizations, according to the report released by the German IT security company G Data.

    "One of the emerging issues from 2011, which will develop over the next 12 months, is malware for mobile platforms," said Eddy Willems, Security Evangelist at G Data.

    "Devices with the Android operating system will be increasingly under fire as cyber-criminals are constantly finding new ways to attack its vulnerabilities. 2011 saw a rise in social engineering, where users installed infected apps on their devices, causing many to lose money and personal data. 2012 will be the year of banking Trojans as more people migrate to mobile platforms for online banking facilities. The banking Trojan malware can be bought quite easily and created individually by the attackers, which makes it a widespread threat," he said.

    G Data also predicts an increase in attacks on companies and organizations. Duqu worm appearance in 2011 showed that criminals are interested in spying any company and are not targeting only high level companies as did the emergence of Stuxnet.

    Duqu can be used in different ways to compromise data and to infiltrate a network with specialized attacks. Thus, the possibilities of using it to steal data or key information are vast, from spam to espionage, specialized targeted attacks or sophisticated phishing attacks, the report also shows.

    Major events of the year, such as the Olympic Games, the 2012 Football European Championship or the U.S. presidential elections, will provide a perfect environment for offenders.

    "We expect to see a steep incline in fake online ticket shops, website defacements, attacks at the venue sites and much more," says Willems.

    You may also want to read:
    CES 2012: Intel Sets New Standards in Smartphones and Tablets
    LG Optimus 3D and Nokia X7: The Battle Continues!
    Top Smartphones of 2011

  • BitDefender Launches Mobile Security for Android Smartphones

    BitDefender, one of the leading antivirus vendors in the world, has launched BitDefender Mobile Security, an application specially designed for Android smartphones.

    The solution proposed by the Romanian company protects the users of smartphones and tablets against all the malware for Android, expanding BitDefender’s technological competence from desktop solutions to security applications for mobile devices.

    In terms of technological solution, BitDefender Mobile Security is based heavily on the in-the-cloud scanning, so that the process of scanning the application to be made with maximum efficiency and only when necessary. This is why the fingerprint of the security solution is minimal in terms of hardware resource consumption, fact certified in the “real life” by the more than 120,000 beta testers of BitDefender Mobile Security.

    Apart from the minimal impact on processing speed, the battery of mobile equipment is the second major beneficiary, the application having very little influence on energy consumption. "BitDefender Mobile Security is an excellent example demonstrating that an application can be very strong in the level of protection and also amazing when it comes to economic resources or battery," said Alex Balan, Senior Product Manager at Bitdefender .

    "The very high performance of our application is guaranteed by the years of experience in the malware field, BitDefender technologies being certified and awarded internationally. Finally, we are among the most experienced in-the-cloud developers, so that our security solution extensively uses this resource, the concept of "mobile security" becoming truly mobile," he added.

    BitDefender Mobile Security includes features such as Application Audit, Anti-Theft or Web Security, which help the user preserve privacy, to protect themselves against all the threats or even to recover a lost or stolen mobile device.

    Commercially speaking, the BitDefender security solution is a “freemium” type of product, meaning the application can be downloaded for free from the Android Market.