Although The Number Is Dropping, Mobile Malware Attacks Are Still Lurking In Indonesia

Illustration of mobile malware (photo: Pixabay)

JAKARTA - No digital space is 100 percent safe from the threats of cybercriminals. During the first half of 2022, Kaspersky managed to detect and block 79,442 malware attacks.

The number of malware attacks targeting mobile devices in Indonesia is down 66 percent when compared to detections in the same period last year, with 232,483 attacks.

However, the global cybersecurity company said it was too early to consider the threat of mobile malware as harmless. The company sees cybercriminals' ability to spread malicious elements increasingly diverse.

This is evidenced by Kaspersky's finding that many different fake apps are distributed through official app stores. It is not uncommon for an application published on the store to be accompanied by a perfect rating with all the false positive reviews posted on the page.

The same thing was also found by Meta. Meta security researchers discovered more than 400 malicious Android and iOS apps this year designed to steal Facebook login information and compromise user accounts.

According to Meta, the app is even listed on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store and masquerades as photo editor apps, games, VPN services, business apps, and other utilities to trick people into downloading them.

Moreover, for the first six months of 2022 alone, Indonesia is ranked 4th globally in terms of mobile threats.

“Our security experts recently revealed an active cybercrime campaign targeting mobile device users in the Harly, Anubis, and Roaming Mantis Southeast Asia regions,” said Yeo Siang Tiong, General Manager for Southeast Asia at Kaspersky, in a statement received in Jakarta.

Yeo explained, Harly is a Subscriber Trojan that targets users in Southeast Asian countries. The Trojan can make users subscribe to paid services without their knowledge.

“Anubis combines a mobile banking Trojan with ransomware functionality to extort more money from its victims. Meanwhile, Roaming Mantis is a well-known group that actively targets Android and iOS users," Yeo added.

According to him, this shows that regardless of the type of device we use, cybercriminals can infect our smartphones, then steal all the data and money on them, and even access or even delete messages, emails, private photos and more.