UAE sees 24% drop in smartphone cyber episodes in Q1 of 2020
15 June, 2020
The quantity of cyber attacks targetted at smartphones in the UAE dropped 24.3 % year-on-year in the primary quarter of 2020 and users remained progressively cautious as they continued to work remotely to curb the spread of Covid-19.
Smartphone users found in the country encountered 39,828 attacks in the three months to March 31, practically 12,779 significantly less than the same period this past year, Moscow-based cyber security provider Kaspersky stated on Sunday.
“It really is great to see that UAE smartphone owners remained vigilant through the [Covid-19] crisis and didn't fall for scammers’ methods,” Victor Chebyshev, security professional at Kaspersky, said. The monthly rate remained stable in April and could as people shifted to distant working.
“Every system includes a vulnerability, but human factor is normally considered the best of these … seeing that there is absolutely no [comparative] upsurge in attacks during a shift to home based and global pandemic is reassuring.”
In April and could, the UAE tackled 28,235 smartphone attacks bringing the full total to 68,063 in the initial five months of this year, Kaspersky said without providing a comparative figure for the same period last year.
The UAE, the second-biggest Arab economy, is an integral market for smartphone suppliers because of its extensive internet penetration.
A good November 2018 YouGov study discovered that nine in 10 respondents in the UAE own a smartphone, with 70 % of those with out a smartphone planning to buy one.
Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous nation, experienced 220,000 attacks in the first five months of 2020. Saudi Arabia, the region’s major economy, witnessed 160,000 attacks through the period.
The UAE was accompanied by Kuwait and Oman, with 20,000 and 15,000 attacks respectively through the five-month period.
As the influence of cell platforms surges, the purpose of smartphones running a business functions and day-to-day life is growing rapidly, Kaspersky said.
“Cyber criminals are also paying more attention to how they are distributing malware and increasing their activity in this time of crisis.”
The company cautioned that so that you can protect smartphones from cyber attacks, users should install applications only from official iphone app stores, such as for example Google Play on Android equipment and the App Retailer on iPhones.
Smartphone users should also install system and software updates as soon as possible to automatically patch vulnerabilities and hold devices protected.
Users should block the installation of programmes from unknown resources in their smartphone adjustments and shouldn't bypass gadget restrictions as this "may provide cyber criminals with limitless capacities to carry out their attacks", the company said.
Gulf countries continue to be appealing to cyber criminals, because of their growing digital footprint.
The common cost of data breaches in the UAE and Saudi Arabia was $5.9 million (Dh21.65m) in 2019, a 12.4 per cent year-on-year increase, according to a written report by IBM Security. This is second simply to the US, which has the highest total average price per info breach of $8.19m.
Source: www.thenational.ae
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