Mobile Media and Social Networks: Targeted Threats
- Because they are especially popular social networks and mobile terminals are choice targets for fraudsters.
See Previous Watches - Volume 16 of Symantec Internet Security Threat Report now considers these issues.
- Social engineering techniques are now very much aided by the proliferation of public user data and by the credulity of their targets inclined to unveil their interests and provide advice to their peers. Malicious individuals can use this information and easily redirect them to infected pages (for instance through using shortened URLs):
- This report also counts 163 detected vulnerabilities affecting mobile phones in 2010 (compared to 115 in 2009). It also remind us that a Trojan horse spread on Android terminals. Compromised applications and known Web channels (malicious links) are generally responsible for these infections. Symantec ponders over the evolution of these threats as mobile terminals are now used in payment contexts (the reader is reminded of the development of contactless payment) and as users store their bank credentials on their phone.
- Finally, this report indicates that companies are generally targeted by several kinds of attacks aiming to retrieve proprietary data likely to be sold.
- These omnipresent channels are placed at the heart of several players’ strategies: including banking players. M-commerce and M-banking are developing regardless of the threats looming over these nomadic media. Social platforms are now positioned on payments (Facebook new subsidiary Facebook Payment Inc.) which could indicate they are very likely to be even more targeted in the future.