OZ Mobile Users Under Attack By ‘Nation-States’
Un-named “nation states” are increasingly targeting mobile users in countries including Australia for intelligence gathering and disruption of national rivals, according to a report from Crowd Strike.
“These nation-states typically target end-users who demonstrate political or intelligence value, while the criminal actors attempt to monetise mobile devices through ransomware, banking trojans, credential theft and crypto-mining,” said Crowd Strike VP Adam Myers.
He noted that in late March a new malware family called Gustuff began being distributed to targets in Australia via an SMS spam campaign.
Gustuff gets victims to enter their credentials by triggering push notifications sent by a fake banking app. Other key trends noted in the report include:
- Mobile ransomware, presenting just as large an issue as traditional ransomware and able to be used to support operations seeking to disrupt business operations as part of a wider attack against a company or sector;
- Phishing and banking trojans remain prevalent criminal techniques;
- Click fraud poses multiple threats, as it can be re-purposed to perform other functions; and
- Insider threats present a large, critical issue in the mobile space.