Where there’s some good, sooner or later it is going to attract people who would pollute it to use it for their own ulterior motives. It’s been years since we have faced such malicious attacks on our computers. But as Smartphones get popular, it was just a matter of time before cyber criminals turned their attention to targeting the mobile platforms and apps. In the recent times, the cases of malicious apps have been seen on a steady rise.
In fact, Trend Micro recently warned smartphone users about the increasing number of App Repackaging, Underground Economy, rising Mobile Malware with the High-Risk App Count reaching up to 2 Million.
And now, as the World Cup fever takes over the world, there seems to have been unleashed a new wave of mobile malware targeting football fans. And many malicious World Cup themed apps are now floating about. As per Trend Micro, cyber criminals are speedily developing clones of popular apps that can cause the users loss of money and the leakage of confidential data. These apps can subscribe the users to paid services, leak sensitive information, install malicious links and shortcuts on the homescreen of the devices.
Many different kind of malicious apps are out there to target football fans. For example, Trend Micro found a World Cup slot game app that can filter payment confirmation messages preventing the user from noticing that they are paying real money while playing the game.
So far, Trend Micro has found more than 375 questionable or malicious World Cup apps. However, most of these apps are from third party app stores. Thus, it is now even more advisable not to download apps from third party stores. And of course, before downloading any app, don’t ignore reading the permissions and looking over the reviews, number of downloads and the developer’s website.