July 14, 2021
New data from Kaspersky revealed that messaging apps for Android devices are extremely popular targets for phishing scammers.
In all phishing attempts on Android messaging platforms between December 2020 and May 2021, WhatsApp led the way with a whopping 89.6% of detected attacks.
A distant second was Telegram, with ( 5.6%), Viber (4.7%) and Google Hangouts (less than 1%) were far behind.
Users in Russia, Brazil and India were most frequently attacked.
Malicious links in the identified messaging apps were detected on devices running Kaspersky Internet Security for Android, which included a new Safe Messaging feature that tries to prevent users from opening malicious links.
Kaspersky recorded 91,242 discoveries over the course of the study.
Viber and Hangouts, according to the report, had very different geographical conditions, with most attacks on Viber users coming from Russia and most of the Hangouts from the U.S. and France.
Kaspersky recommends that every online user take the following steps to avoid becoming a phishing victim:
- Look out for spelling mistakes or irregularities in links.
- Never send suspicious links or links from people you cannot verify.
- Fraudsters disguise themselves by pretending to be from a legitimate company, and some of them contact targets by sourcing their information from legitimate sources. Sources may seem legitimate, but be very careful when sending information with spelling errors and other red flags.
- Install a security solution on a mobile device.
For more information, read the original story in TechRepublic.
