MANILA, Philippines – Skype video calling service is also becoming a popular platform for malware distribution, according to software security firm Kaspersky Lab.
In its recently released Malware Statistics Report, the company said cybercriminals make fake phone calls to Skype users that do not have call restrictions and warn them of infection on their computers unless they visit a specific website.
The said website, when visited, will download malware onto the users’ computers and ask them to pay a certain amount to activate “security” functions.
Kaspersky Lab security expert Alexander Gostev noted that there has been a rise in attacks using Skype in September.
He then advised users to only receive phone calls from those who are in their contacts list.
More attacks
Kaspersky Lab said it has found 680 new variations of malware programs, with 559 of them targeted at devices using Google’s Android operating system.
Of the Android malware, 182 had backdoor functionality, which allows malware authors to remotely send commands to infected devices.
“It was obvious that sooner or later the majority of malicious programs for mobile devices were going to make extensive use of the Internet for such things as connecting to remote servers to receive commands,” Gostev said.
Meanwhile, Kaspersky Lab said a new form of attack is infecting the BIOS (basic input/output system), which is the first firmware that a computer runs during startup. Among these is the Rootkit.Win32.Mybios.a.
The company warned that infecting the BIOS allows the malware to gain control of all the boot up stages of the computer.
Article source: http://rp2.abs-cbnnews.com/lifestyle/gadgets-and-tech/11/07/11/skype-becoming-popular-platform-malware
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