Every day new cybersecurity threats are being found. Most recently, there’s been an uptick in malware related to mobile banking. The trojan program clones your mobile banking login page and collects your login information when you enter it. And the newest variant includes a ransomware package that will then lock you out of your data as well. Here is more on the story from ComputerWorld.
One such trojan is called Faketoken and its primary functionality is to generate fake login screens for more than 2,000 financial applications in order to steal login credentials. The malicious app also displays phishing pages to steal credit card information, and it can read and send text messages.
Faketoken’s creators have added the ability to encrypt user files stored on the phone’s SD card sometime in July and have since released thousands of builds with this functionality, according to researchers from Kaspersky Lab.
“Once the relevant command is received, the Trojan compiles a list of files located on the device (external memory, memory card) corresponding to the given list of 89 extensions and encrypts them,” Kaspersky Lab researcher Roman Unuchek said Monday in a blog post. “The AES symmetric encryption algorithm is used, which leaves the user with a chance of decrypting files without paying a ransom.”
Faketoken masquerades as popular apps and games and, once installed, it nags the user into giving it the necessary permissions through repeated prompts. It has managed to infect more than 16,000 devices in 27 countries, many of them located in Russia, Ukraine, Germany, and Thailand.
How can you protect yourself from the constant onslaught of cybersecurity threats? Read these tips to prevent phishing attacks. Follow these network security practices in regards to your staff. Avoid these common practices that increase your exposure to data security breaches. And hire a trusted partner and security expert to ensure your network and data are monitored and protected. Great Lakes Computer offers server monitoring, cloud computing, and a variety of data security and antivirus packages to protect your data. Contact us today.
