What Are The Kinds Of Malware That Affects Your Smartphone

   Your Smartphone is just like a small PC that you keep in your pocket most of the time. There are a lot of details and personal information that people keep on their phone.  You can browse the web and send emails. Most Smartphones have WI-Fi  connection s that allows you to chat with people using viber, facebook and you can even download  applications  from third party vendors. Doing these things can be risky.  You need to be protected. There are certain malwares that you can get from downloading. Remember that there are hackers out there who want to get something from you and even earn money.

   

   Here Are Some Of The Malwares That Every Smartphone User Must Be Aware Of:

1. Expander- It’s main objective is to hit the smartphone’s mobile meters and this can add on to your  phone bill and of course the hackers what to make some profit.

2. Worm – This malware reproduces and it could contaminate other devices. It does contain spurious instructions and if you follow it this can be very harmful. This type of malware can be conveyed through text messages.

3. Trojan – This is a very dangerous malware because this type of virus can erase your data. It can deactivate applications on your phone and it will malfunction and paralyze your smartphone.

4. Spyware  - This type of malware is really bad because it can access your personal data, use it and spread it out without you knowing it. The hacker can get sensitive information from your smartphone.

5. Ghost Push – This malware takes control of your phone’s system resources. It makes it unresponsive and it will drain your battery in a fast way. There will be unnecessary apps that will come on  and appear suddenly . Advertisements can appear at any time in full display or on your status bar.

6. Cabir – This malware infects smartphones that are running on Symbian OS. When infected, the smartphone will come out with a message ‘Caribe’and it will be displayed on your phone the moment your phone is turned on.

7. Duts – This malware will infect all your EXE. files that are bigger than 4096 bytes in your current directory.

8. Skulls – It’s a Trojan horse type of code that attacks Symbian OS. The moment you download this type  of malware , the Skull photo will appear replacing your icons. It will render all phone apps useless.

9. Commwarrior - This malware spreads through Bluetooth and it affects Symbian OS. Once this malware is launched , it will hunt down Bluetooth devices and the infected files are sent through a random name to various devices.

10. Gingermaster – It is a type of malware that creates a service that steals information from your android Smartphone and sends it to a remote website with an HTTP POST request. The information taken includes user identifier, SIM Card number, telephone number, IMEI number, IMSI number, screen resolution and local time.

11. DroidKungFu  - This malware  works in two ways. First, it takes advantage of a backdoor in the Android phone’s software to load a backdoor on a device, allowing hackers to steal sensitive information on the device. Secondly, the handset could turn into a .bot. This will permit the device to be used to perform actions without the user’s permission.

11. IKee  -  This is a type of malware ( worm  ) that targets  the Apple iPhone OS.  IKee can only infect an iPhone if:  1. The device has been jailbroken – hacked by the user to install software that has not been approved by Apple 2. An unapproved Security Shell  ( SSH ) application, which allows remote access to the device has been installed 3. The default SSH password for the ‘root’ user has not been changed from the factory default (  ’alpine’ ). Users who have not jailbroken their iPhones, do have an SSH application installed or have changed the default SSH password are not affected.  When this type of malware is active, it will change the background wallpaper dwhen the iPhone is locked .  The image of 1980’s pop star Rick Astley will appear. You’ll just see the message “ IKee is never going to give you up”.

12. Gunpoder - This malware was the first known virus that infected google playstore.

13. Shedun- It’s an adware serving as a malware. It can install malicious third party apps on your mobile devices remotely even if the users do not want to use it.

14. HummingBird -  This malware has infected over 10 million Android operating systems. User details are sold and adverbs are tapped on without the user’s knowledge. This way illegal advertising revenue is generated.

   My personal advice for smartphone users  is to be careful when downloading apps. Be sure you are downloading apps from a credible source. Do not just keep on clicking and clicking. Do not open emails , if you do not know the source where it came from. Always be on the alert , Do not just befriend anybody on Social Media. Install a credible mobile anti-malware security.  It is better to stay protected than unprotected. This is just my advice.