Mobile phone (iOS/Android) attacks

Mobile phone usage by far exceeds any other computing device today. However, mobile phone users tend to be oblivious to the cyber threats that they face. Therefore, it is quite easy for an attacker to compromise a large number of mobile phones since it is unlikely that the users will have installed any effective security tools. There have been quite a number of mobile phone attacks in the recent past that have been reported on both Android and iOS devices. The following sections illustrate a few of these attacks.

Exodus

This spyware is said to have been the wake-up call for many mobile phone users on iOS devices. The spyware was initially effective against Android phones only, but soon enough, an iOS variant came up. It was a big concern for years in the Google Play Store since there were several malicious apps that had this malware. Security experts faulted the ineffectiveness of Google Play’s security filtering mechanism for new...