According to many reports in 2015, the growth of mobile malware has slowed. While this is great news to our ears, it shouldn’t escape us that the malware being introduced to the market today is nastier.
This year has been relatively calm because the rapidness of mobile malware attacks has gone down. However, according to Blue Coat Systems in its 2015 Mobile Malware Report, the maliciousness of malware attacks that have been reported is simply alarming. The viciousness of ransomware is increasing and becoming more robust which is very similar to the attack it had on the desktops according to Chris Larsen from Blue Coat.
A good example of what a ransomware can do is the ability of one ransomware strain to reconfigure or reset the personal identification number (PIN) on an Android device. However, ransomware can be stopped when you reset your mobile device factory settings. Beware however that the all the contents in your device will be lost.
The one thing that comes out clear is that whoever wrote this PIN reset malware was not very good at what he does. The reason for declaring this is because this virus replaces your PIN with a random number which is not only unknown to you but funnily also to the extortionist.
There is a lot of work going on to prevent malware spreading through the internet but mobile device users are definitely making everything harder. The advice to a mobile device owner is not to take drastic action such as rooting it but rather to only get their apps from trusted platforms such as Google Play or Apple Store. Chris Larsen added that people should stop living as though they are in China or Russia and start going to know trusted sites.
The other advice Larsen gave when talking to TechNewsWorld is that people should avoid surfing for porn because many porn sites have been seen to be linked or to be in cohorts with a lot of ransomware creators.
However, people tend to ignore all warnings given to them on the need to avoid risky behaviours.
