Cyber thieves eye mobile money

MANILA, Philippines – Cyber thieves are now attacking mobile phones to steal cash, according to a report released by bbc.com.

Initial reports by Lookout indicate that cases of cyber theft through mobile phones have increased by 62 percent from just 29 percent in the nine months covered by the report.

Lookout is a smartphone security company dedicated to making the mobile experience safe.

Viruses were getting on to phones via booby-trapped apps (applications) and through adverts and web pages harboring malware, the report said.

Kevin Mahaffey, head of technology at Lookout, said phone fraudsters were increasingly using viruses that added charges to a user’s bill to cash in.

But lately, cyber thieves increased the use of more sophisticated malware. Malware is a software that is intended to damage or disable computers and computer systems.

Lookout noted attacks that did not directly try to steal money from a phone. It simply inserts a virus called “NotCompatible.”

“It turns your phone into a proxy for fraudulent behavior,” Mahaffey, said.

The virus would influence mobile money transactions of the infected mobile phone, thus becoming a conduit instead of the cyber thieves using their own devices directly.

“Such a virus might be used to artificially inflate the popularity of an advert, a song on a music website to help generate a larger return for criminals,” the bbc.com report said.