The Business of Malware and Your Mobile Device

We often view hackers as creeps who are bent on spreading viruses to disrupt everyone's lives, perhaps for the sake of anarchy or some extreme ideology. But when it comes down to it, most hackers are in it for the money and are just trying to make a quick buck. In fact, hacking groups may even be more organized than your business!

The beginning of the hacking movement consisted of nerds in their mom's basements working alone. Now, hacking has blossomed into an organized international criminal enterprise. All throughout the world, there are hackers that go to work in an office building, sit in a cubicle from 9-5, put in time off request with HR, and work with project managers, just like we do. Unlike your business, hackers use their resources not to serve customers, but to rip off sensitive information that can be sold to other shady groups within their vast cyber-criminal network.

Not every employee at Hackers Inc. is spending their workdays poking around websites, looking for a way to get in. The majority of these employees are called "malware mercenaries." These are the jerks responsible for writing malware codes. Malware mercenaries actually have a pretty secure job; their job description is to write code that will exploit the vulnerabilities of security programs. The makers of security software are always writing code to stay one step ahead of the hackers, which means that hackers will have new code to decipher. It's like a classic good vs. evil scenario where each industry needs the other to survive.

Like any business, cybercriminals are opportunistic. Hackers watch for trends and try to exploit them. The current trend hackers are exploiting is the fact that consumers and businesses are increasingly using their mobile devices for financial transactions. In the past, smartphones were considered relatively safe from hackers because they tend to go after platforms that are popular in order to increase their chances of success. Now, thanks to all of these malware mercenaries plugging away in their cubicles of crime, there is more malware for smartphones than ever before.

There are two primary malwares that are designed for mobile devices. The first kind is designed to specifically target financial institutions and capture their authentication information. The other popular mobile malware takes advantage of SMS services to withdraw money directly from accounts, or to automatically send several SMS messages to overly priced premium-rate numbers, leaving you with a major phone bill at the end of the month.

As organized as the hackers are, you can bet that they will be on top of the latest technology and security trends in order to maximize earning for their company, and hopefully impress their CEO, and maybe get promoted to Vice President of Hacker Affairs, East Coast. Directive is on the front lines of the latest in network and mobile security solutions. We work to stay ahead of the hackers so that you don't have to worry about it. It may seem like hackers are good at their job, but they still prefer to only target business with low-to-minimal network protection.

When a hacker spots that your business is being protected with a security solution from Directive, they will prefer to move on and look for something easier. To learn more about protecting your network and mobile devices from hackers, call Directive at 607.433.2200.