How Mobile Apps Can Be Riskful!

With the growing numbers of cyber attacks worldwide, people are somewhere afraid of the internet. Everyone surfs the internet with precautions using secure networks. Having firewall installed in their system, using secure passwords, people have become smart.

But what about our phones and the apps which we download from Google play store and iTune stores?

We need to accept that people use more internet facilities on their phone than sitting in front of a computer. We share almost every data from our phone (email, social media, various bookings etc.). The use of the internet on the phone is so frequent that it has become a need for the people.

Similarly, the modern-day cyber criminals are so clever and advanced that they can easily trap our phones.

Do you know that mobile applications running on our phone use our location and other settings?

Moreover, there is a very possible chance that the phishers can sell our data to third parties. Certainly, these mobile applications can put us in trouble. So, let's check below how mobile apps can be riskful:

1. Activity monitoring and access to data:

Every phone application has its own rules and regulations. Once installed, they often ask for several permissions i.e. messaging, file manager, location etc. It is true that many applications legitimately need that access to work properly. While others are a bit riskful. Once we help these mobile applications with the access of such permissions, they are actually monitoring our data and activities, which is a big risk.

2. Banking facility in our phone:

In the digital age, everything is managed by the internet. In order to help individuals with a hassle-free banking experience, every bank has its own personalised mobile app. These apps, sometimes strike back for the users. For instance, if your phone is trapped, the cyber criminals can misuse of your bank account too.

3. Unauthorized connectivity:

How many of us use wifi (no at home) to access the internet? Connecting our devices to unknown networks is never safe. What we are doing is, we are opening up our device to the network. There are many other mediums that can be used to control our device, such as: Email, HTTP, Bluetooth, SMS etc.

4. Sensitive data collection:

Trust me, gathering sensitive information of the users is no more a tough job for phishers. When we use a mobile app, we not only share our location and device access to them, but also link our information in there. For instance, they ask for personal details such as full name, phone number, email address etc. This data can be used in several ways to scam or send unwanted malware to us. They may sell this to others!

What's the solution?

We are the pilot of our mobile, and we need to handle it precisely without having a crash. Hence, we need to monitor it smartly. It is intrinsic to understand each app running on our phone and the access it requires performing the functions. Let's go through some tips to safeguard our phone below:

• Don't install any unwanted application.
• Uninstall unwanted application (no more needed).
• Check application manager and manage access accordingly (for e.g. no need to provide "contact" access to camera app).
• Connect your devices to trusted networks (WiFi, Bluetooth etc.).
• Don't use same general passwords for banking or sensitive applications.
• Don't click on links received in emails or SMS, verify it first!

Found this helpful?

ISOEH (Indian School of Ethical Hacking) is a trusted cyber security institute in India. We help the community with various cyber security resources to keep them alert from the cyber attacks.

Besides, we provide a diverse range of cyber security courses for students such as Ethical Hacking (Cyber Security), Digital & Computer Forensic, Machine Learning, Penetration Testing and others.

Let's fight against the cyber criminals together!