People do not realize how little security Smartphones offer. It always gives me goose bumps when I see people so happily carrying out banking, administrative and even medical procedures with these ‘so comfortable’ apps in the Store, for more convenience even using public WiFi at McDonalds.
Having that said, you’re not gonna be spied on with this particular virus/service, because it’s quite expensive, it’s a couple of millions per victim.
In that sense, GAFAM and legal surveillance capitalism are more concerning.
I think you can say that about most operating systems. The problem with cell phones is that ppl are quite promiscuous with installing apps and OS doesn’t proved strong sandboxing.
True, but in general on a PC you have infinitely more options to protect against virus and hackers than on a mobile. Any mediocre hacker is capable of hacking into most people’s mobile in a matter of seconds. In both Android and iOS, security is a matter of faith.
This malware is not too hard to protect against. There have been two kinds of exploits it uses, one of which being missed Whatsapp voice call which I think has been patched.
The main one is a URL sent via SMS, which you do not have to click.
So basically, the malware takes advantage of bad OPSEC and bad IT 101 practices on the user targets.
out of interest, how would that hostile SMS URL work with those SMS preview things alot of mobile SMS messaging implementations use?
Disable preview or use clients that allow to disable or cannot preview. QKSMS works just fine for me.
