McAfee predicts increase in crypto-mining, fake apps in 2019

The new "Mobile Threat Report" from Security Company McAfee reveals with emphasis that there will be increase in crypto-mining operations and distribution of fake applications, even as there will be malware everywhere during 2019.

In particular McAfee notes there will be increase in banking Trojans, backdoors infecting mobile applications, as well as crypto-mining operations wherein more than 600 distinct rogue crypto-mining applications have by now emerged in twenty application stores.

McAfee's report further states regarding banking Trojans which had a twofold rise during June-September 2018. This type of Trojan is really malware which appears as an authentic banking app while it filches critical financial information from bank customers. Evidently, banking Trojans are getting more sophisticated in their functionality, and are capable of executing spyware and keylogging offences.

Meanwhile according to chief scientist and fellow at McAfee, Mr. Raj Samani, a huge number of Internet-of-Thing (IoT) devices are getting hijacked through exploitation of basic security loopholes such as weak default settings and passwords that are easily cracked. Samani says cyber-criminals' ultimate objective is earning money whether
by building botnets or committing click fraud, capturing banking credentials, else diving to damage reputation till the time a ransom payment is made. www.techradar.com posted this dated February 25, 2019.

Incidentally, it appears that malware threats' greatest increase follows from creation of fake applications. These fake applications have numerically risen a huge 550% to some 65,000 during December from 10,000 during June last year. Described as one kind of mobile malicious software, fake applications impersonate widely used applications for making innocent application users take them down. Usually these apps generate income via the exhibition of unwanted ads as well as diversion of end-users onto more apps to be downloaded.

Finally the report predicts that with more than 25m smart speakers or voice assistants already getting used, malware assaults against IoT devices will prominently take place due to their utter popularity. IoT gadgets' chief vulnerability to malware attacks occurs from little or no security included into them. For e.g. voice assistants bear link with microphones that enable spying else carrying out other malicious activities, McAfee
enumerates.

» SPAMfighter News - 2/28/2019