Mobile Phones Likely to Play Larger Role in Cyber Attacks, Experts Predict

The smartphone is a personal computer in your pocket, but it could become a more focused target for cybercriminals in 2022, according to security experts.

Mobile devices are amazing and give us instant access to email, the internet, and many other applications. But, unfortunately, smartphone security has not kept pace with traditional computer security.

Technical security measures, such as firewalls, antivirus, and encryption, are not as standardized on mobile phones. 

Among cybersecurity company Kaspersky’s 2022 security threat predictions, “mobile devices have long been a target for attackers, with smartphones travelling along with their owners everywhere, and each potential target acting as a store for a huge amount of valuable information. In 2021 we have seen more in-the-wild zero-day attacks on iOS than ever before.”

Spanish Internet solutions firm Qualiteasy believes mobile users will see more attacks on mobile phones in the form of “SMSishing.” Like phishing emails, attackers try to deceive users by sending them to fraudulent sites by clicking on links in text messages.

These new threats are in addition to the many vulnerabilities phones share with personal computers. One of the most significant threats is the device getting stolen. A sophisticated attacker with enough time can defeat most security features of mobile phones and gain access to any information they store, according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

How can you reduce your chances of falling for Internet scams, whether it’s on your phone or PC?

The U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has four easy things you can do:

• Implement multi-factor authentication on your accounts. 
• Update your software.  
• Think before you click. More than 90% of successful cyberattacks start with phishing emails.  
• Use strong passwords, and ideally, a password manager to generate and store unique passwords.