The top malware in Nigeria in the month of May has been
revealed to be on financial sector, known as Gamarue, just as attacks on mobile
devices remain high-priority, reports ITRealms.
The Check Point Software Technoogies latest report, the
malware, Gamarue, is a modular bot that hides in trusted processes and could be
used to harvest financial information.
According to the Area Manager for East and West Africa at
Check Point Software Technologies, Mr. Rick Rogers, attacks against mobile
devices also remained a high priority as Android malware HummingBad persisted
in the overall top 10 of malware attacks across all platforms during the
period.
“In both Kenya and Nigeria, Hummingbad ranks as the fifth
most common malware form,” the checklist revealed, pointing out that this is
happening despite only being discovered by Check Point researchers in February.
“It has rapidly become commonly used; indicating hackers
view Android mobile devices as weak spots in enterprise security and as
potentially high reward targets,” Rogers said.
He further believes that both of these threats are
significant in the African context as Android phone sales and banking inclusion
continue to move up the ladder.
“As Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) continues to be a trend and
smartphone penetration on the continent grows, companies are at an increased
risk from Hummingbad in particular, and other malware. Combined with the growth
in malware family numbers overall, this represents a significant business risk.
Enterprises of all sizes must educate themselves on the security threats they
face and invest in solid measures to protect their networks and corporate
data,” Rogers said.
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