Two malwares affecting operating systems of smart devices per second
QR causes journalists to be hacked
Huwaida Othman - Dubai
Despite the sophistication of information
security software today, it still has not kept
pace with the diverse and rapidly grow-
ing hacking techniques, particularly in the
smart technology segment. Global statis-
tics indicated that two viruses and mal-
wares are produced per second.
Trend Micro, an information security spe-
cialist, warned that hackers have changed
their way of thinking and techniques to
keep pace with the rapidly developing
smart technology. It indicated that one re-
cent hacking trend is the use of QR code
scanner feature, which is an easy chan-
nel through which viruses can be fed to a
user’s device without knowing at all.
Ihab Moawad, MMEA Leader at Trend Mi-
cro, explained that malware entering de-
vices through QR can easily and in a very
short time transfer the user’s entire data
found on the device, this allowing hackers
to turn on the device camera and micro-
phone and record everything without any
notifications sent by the phone indicating
such use.
Moawad pointed out that out of its aware-
ness of the impact of this kind of malware,
Micro Trend organized a workshop for jour-
nalists, specialized in IT topics, under the
title “The Importance of Protecting Smart
D e v i c e s
a g a i n s t
Malware”.
M o a w a d
continued
saying that
at the en-
trance to
the venue
where the
workshop
took place,
we have
placed a
large board
written on it “scan QR code for a chance
to win an iPad”. Naturally, no journalist
hesitated in scanning the code. After com-
pleting the workshop that offered the nec-
essary tips and advice on how to protect
smart devices against hacking, we asked
the journalists to open the laptop placed in
front of them and log in a certain database.
Surprisingly, each journalist found their
entire phone data (numbers, pictures, vid-
eos) on the database, in addition to a full
recording of the workshop that was done
through the camera and microphone of
each individual phone.
Moawad indicated that using this method
was more persuasive for media special-
ists so that they can provide users with the
necessary awareness and warning.
He pointed out that problem of malware
finding their way to smart devices through
code scanners. Such malware transfers
the entire data to the hacker, and also re-
main in the user’s device for long time and
is hard to detect unless there is informa-
tion security software installed on the de-
vice. That way, such malware can repeat-
edly carry out its role every now and then
as the hacker decides.
Trend Micro:
QR codes
are inherent
to devices;
the solution
is a strong
antivirus
software
19
February
2015
