After the WannaCry attack, Antivirus apps now promising to protect your smartphone from the universal ransomware attack.
WannaCry ransomware attack had affected more than 200,000 computers in 150 countries. The malware controlled and encrypted the users’ files and required payments. The malware doesn’t target phones, it used a vulnerability that has been discovered by the National Security Agency (NSA) and leaked by hackers, that targeted outdated Windows systems.
A cyber security firm called RiskIQ discovered hundreds of apps that supposed to help defend mobile phones, but instead of that, they affecting users by pushing adware, trojans, and other malware.
“Using a title search for “Antivirus” resulted in 6,295 total apps, past and present, claiming to either be an antivirus solution, review antivirus solutions or be associated with antivirus software in some way. More than 700 of these apps triggered blacklist detections from the aggregated antivirus vendors in VirusTotal. Trimming the dataset to compare apps only coming from the Google Play store showed 655 results. Of those, 131 had triggered blacklist detections.”
Users are recommended to do the following to stay secure:
– Only download apps from official stores.
– Always review the requested permissions, make sure the app author email address is not a free email service like Gmail or Yahoo.
– Review the app description to check if it is riddled with grammatical errors.
– Check the app against known blacklists. VirusTotal provides a great starting point.
