Mobile malware grows threefold — Kaspersky
KUALA LUMPUR: Kaspersky Lab has published its second quarter (2Q) cyberthreats report highlighting key security incidents of the quarter and evaluating the 2Q cyberthreat level.
In a press statement, Kaspersky highlighted that 291,800 new mobile malware programmes have emerged in 2Q, which is 2.8 times greater than in 1Q.
It noted that 51 per cent of webborne attacks blocked by Kaspersky Lab’s products were launched from malicious web resources located in Russia followed by US, Netherlands, Germany, France, Virgin Islands, Ukraine, Singapore, the UK and China.
The report also pointed out that there were a million mobile malware installation packages in 2Q, which is seven times greater than in 1Q.
“Mobile banking has remained a main target for mobile threats. Kaspersky Lab’s 1Q15 report mentioned Trojan-SMS.AndroidOS. OpFake.cc which was capable of attacking no less than 29 banking and financial applications.
“The Trojan’s latest version that emerged in 2Q is capable of attacking 114 (four times more) banking and financial applications. Its main goal is to steal the user’s login credentials with which to attack, among others, several popular email applications,” it said.
Based on Kaspersky’s report, the cybersecurity solutions provider found that there were 5.9 million notifications about attempted malware infections to steal money via online access to bank accounts – this is 800,000 lower than in 1Q.
“In 2Q15, Singapore became the leader in the number of Kaspersky Lab users who came under webborne attacks by banking Trojans – 5.3 per cent of all Kaspersky Lab users in Singapore faced this threat over this time period.
“Next came Switzerland with 4.2 per cent, Brazil (four per cent), Australia (four per cent) and Hong Kong (3.7 per cent),” it highlighted.
The financial threats were also not limited to banking malware programmes which attack the clients of online banking systems, Kaspersky outlined.
“Apart from banking malware
Mobile banking has remained a main target for mobile threats. Kaspersky Lab’s 1Q15 report mentioned TrojanSMS.AndroidOS.OpFake.cc which was capable of attacking no less than 29 banking and financial applications.
Kaspersky Lab
(83 per cent), financial threats are posed by Bitcoin miners (nine per cent) – these are malware programmes that use the victim’s computer’s computational resources to generate bitcoins, as well as bitcoin wallet stealers (six per cent) and keyloggers (two per cent),” it added.
Aside from that, in 2Q, Kaspersky Lab’s Global Research and Analysis Team disclosed four cyberespionage campaigns CozyDuke, Naikon, Hellsing and Duqu 2.0.
The victim toll includes government agencies, commercial companies and other high-level targets.
“In May we published our report on the Naikon APT. Naikon is used in campaigns against sensitive targets in Southeastern Asia and around the South China Sea. The attackers seem to be Chinese-speaking and have been active for at least five years, focusing their attention on toplevel government agencies and civil and military organizations in countries such as the Philippines, Malaysia, Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Singapore, Nepal, Thailand, Laos and China,” it explained.
The second quarter has also demonstrated the cybercriminals’ interest in small and medium businesses, Kaspersky said.
It added, this type of businesses was targeted by the cyberespionage campaign Grabit.
“Cybercriminals focused on such economic sectors as chemical industry, nanotechnologies, education, agriculture, mass media and construction,” it said.
“In 2Q we launched an important initiative called Securing Smart Cities which aims to help those responsible for developing smart cities to do so without forgetting about cybersecurity.
“If security measures are not planned at the development stage, that could have serious implications later, and retro-fitting security might not be a straightforward task,” comments Alexander Gostev, chief security expert at Kaspersky Lab’s Global Research and Analysis Team.
Meanwhile, according to KSN data, Kaspersky Lab solutions detected and repelled a total of 379.9 millions of malicious attacks from online resources located all over the world, which is 19 per cent lower than in 1Q.
“During the three month period, an average of 23.9 per cent of Internet users’ computers across the world came under a web-borne attack at least once. This is 2.4 percentage points lower than in 1Q,” it added.