According to statistics gathered by Avast Threat Labs between October and December 2019, adware accounts for 72% of the attacks on Android devices, a dramatic increase over last year’s 34%. Mobile adware hijacks certain functions in the device in order…
Adware on Google Play gets 440M downloads
An array of 238 apps that have been downloaded a collective total of 440 million times were found to contain “heavily obfuscated adware” known as BeiTaAd, reported Dark Reading, citing the recent findings of s…
Our smartphones. Where would we be without them?
Android users – and I’m one – are well-advised to be constantly vigilant about the types of cyberthreats directed, at any given time, at the world’s most popular mobile device operating system.
The internet is full of tips on how to keep your children safe online… but what about your parents? Many didn’t grow up with the internet, and reports often show that older users are more likely to fall victim to scams such as clicking on unsafe …
Social media networks are a great way for people to connect, keep in touch, update friends and family, but also a great place to spread fraudulent offers. Cybercriminals continuously take advantage of social media networks, like Facebook, to make money…
Child’s play
A disturbing new trend is emerging from the dark web underworld. Cybercriminals are now using the personal data of children to set up credit lines and perpetrate identity theft. Because children naturally have fresh, unblemished credit, t…
ICE skates around privacy
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) issued grave concerns this week over the recent revelation that the US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) holds a $6.1M contract with Vigilant Solutions, an automatic licence…
In February 2019, Avast’s mobile threat intelligence platform (MTIP), apklab.io, discovered a number of “selfie beauty apps” on the Google Play Store posing as legitimate apps, but in reality were filled with adware and spyware. The three apps we found…
Statisticians estimate the number of cell phones in the world to be about 5 billion, with smartphones constituting about half of them. That’s 2.5 billion smartphones in use, which means a good third of the world’s population is texting, FaceTiming, sen…