{"id":53037,"date":"2014-02-12T16:19:07","date_gmt":"2014-02-12T14:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=53037"},"modified":"2014-02-12T16:19:24","modified_gmt":"2014-02-12T14:19:24","slug":"online-banking-mobile-hardest-hit-by-malware","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/53037\/online-banking-mobile-hardest-hit-by-malware\/","title":{"rendered":"Online banking, mobile hardest hit by cyber criminals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Online banking and mobile operating systems were the hardest hit by malware in 2013, according to a new security threat report by security software firm, Trend Micro.<\/p>\n

The report found that online banking malware directly targeting victims\u2019 finances intensified globally in 2013, while prolific ransomware increased and evolved throughout the year.<\/p>\n

“Online banking malware took center stage in terms of volume increase. Our number of online banking malware detections reached almost one million by the end of 2013,” Trend Micro said.<\/p>\n

Online banking malware was detected in countries that had not been previously targetted, according to the report, increasing not only in number, but spread across the globe.<\/p>\n

Japan the United States remained most affected by online banking malware throughout the year, with Brazil and Taiwan following. A spike in increased online banking activity in Brazil and Japan were cited as a possible explanation for the rise in malicious activity.<\/p>\n

“Malware refinements and the surge in the online banking malware volume led to a grave consequence for victims \u2014 actual monetary loss,” Trend Micro said.<\/p>\n

\"Online<\/a>

Online banking malware<\/p><\/div>\n

Mobile malware<\/h3>\n

According to the report, there was a sizable increase in both volume and sophistication of mobile threats in 2013.<\/p>\n

As the most dominant operating system in the market, Android also holds the top spot for drawing the most malicious applications.<\/p>\n

Almost 1.4 million Android apps were found to be malicious by the end of 2013 – 1 million found in 2013 alone.<\/p>\n

“Cyber-criminals will continue to exploit the OS\u2019s dominance, as we predict the malicious and high-risk app volume to reach 3 million by the end of [2014],” Trend Micro said.<\/p>\n

The group found that, while 90% of malicious and high-risk apps were hosted on dodgy domains, about 27% of the total were also found on legitimate app stores.<\/p>\n

“We were, for instance, able to download some malicious apps from Google Play that pushed ads that led to fraudulent sites.”<\/p>\n

Apple’s App Store wasn’t spared either, Trend Micros said, noting that attackers could still effectively hide malicious behaviour that would typically lead to app rejection by the Store.<\/p>\n

According to the report, 2013 saw an increase in phishing attacks specifically targeting Apple users as criminals recognise the potential revenue from its install base.<\/p>\n

\"Malicious<\/a>

Malicious mobile apps<\/p><\/div>\n

Personal Privacy<\/h3>\n

Through social networking and \u201cpersonal cloud\u201d accounts, personal privacy became a recurring issue.<\/p>\n

Aggressive phishing attacks riding on the release of popular products such as PS4 and Xbox One emerged to compromise personal information.<\/p>\n

Infrastructure Attacks<\/h3>\n

High-profile incidents of infrastructure being targeted by cyber-attacks became a reality in South Korea, demonstrating how critical operations can be impacted on a broad scale.<\/p>\n

Unsupported Software<\/h3>\n

2013 saw increased awareness regarding unsupported versions of Java and Windows XP, which will present widespread security challenges as patches and upgrades cease when support for XP ends April 2014.<\/p>\n

More on security<\/h3>\n

South Africa out of favour in 2014<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

South Africa\u2019s IT landscape<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

South African start-up jobs soar<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Online banking and mobile operating systems were the hardest hit by malware in 2013, according to a new security threat report by Trend Micro.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":48856,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[26,1309,189,1230,6454],"class_list":["post-53037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-headline","tag-malware","tag-mobile-2","tag-online-banking","tag-trend-micro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53037"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53043,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53037\/revisions\/53043"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}