Kaspersky Reports an Increase in Malware Threats

Kaspersky Lab reports a rise in Malwares designed to steal credentials and money from user’s bank account in the first quarter of 2019; researchers found an increase of 29,841 files of such malware up from 18,501 in the fourth quarter of 2018. Overall, more than 3, 00,000 users were found to be attacked by these malwares.

Mobile banking Trojans are one of the rapidly developing, flexible, and dangerous types of malware. They are usually designed to steal money from the user’s bank account, but at times their purpose is modified to steal other credentials. These malwares usually look like a legitimate banking app. They gain access to the user’s account when the user reaches out to the genuine bank app.

“The rapid rise of mobile financial malware is a troubling sign, especially since we see how criminals are perfecting their distribution mechanisms. For example, a recent tendency is to hide the banking Trojan in a dropper – the shell that is supposed to fly to the device under the security radar, releasing the malicious part only upon arrival,” – says Victor Chebyshev, Security Researcher at Kaspersky Lab.

Asacub malware, a new version of mobile banking malware families, first appeared in 2015. It accounted for 58.4 percent of all banking Torjans that attacked the users. Initially, the attackers spent nearly two years on perfecting its distribution scheme and, as a result, the malware peaked in 2018, attacking 13,000 users a day. Since then, its rate of spreading has reduced, although it remains a powerful threat in the first quarter of 2019. The Kaspersky Lab detected Asacub targeting on average 8,200 users a day.

Further, to reduce the risk of banking Torjan infection, the users are advised to install applications only from trusted sources, ideally from the official app store. Also the user should restrict the permission requested by the app if they do not correspond to the app’s task.