Managing the Mobile Phone Malware Threat

What do you use your phone for in a given day? Texting, checking the news, social media, banking, getting directions, playing games – most people will use their phones for all of this and more. At this point, they are an essential aspect of modern life. Due to all this activity, phones have become extremely rich sources of data – and hackers will always target data-rich devices. As a result, the amount of malware geared towards compromising mobile phones has skyrocketed. According to a report from McAfee, the amount of malware targeting mobile devices – including tablets – tripled from 2014-2015.

Mobile phone malware, like most malware, if overwhelmingly focused on making money for hackers. Ryan Olson, the Director of Threat Intelligence for Palo Alto Networks, told the Cipher Brief that “the vast majority of mobile malware is financially motivated, but we’ve identified multiple cases where surveillance was the goal.” This can manifest in a number of ways, from unwanted ads to theft of banking credentials to incurring charges for sending unwanted text messages. In addition to this, more phones are being targeted by ransomware – a type of malware that encrypts user data until a ransom is paid. Ransomware effectively allows hackers to force victims to buy back their data, or the use of their phones – and it is proving to be an effective moneymaking tactic. As a result, it is extremely unlikely that ransomware will go away any time soon.