{"id":1138,"date":"2018-06-06T21:04:25","date_gmt":"2018-06-06T21:04:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.psafe.com\/dfndr-lab\/?p=1138"},"modified":"2018-06-11T21:44:04","modified_gmt":"2018-06-11T21:44:04","slug":"americans-accessed-23-malicious-urls-per-minute-android-devices-q1-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.psafe.com\/dfndr-lab\/americans-accessed-23-malicious-urls-per-minute-android-devices-q1-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Americans Accessed 23 Malicious URLs Per Minute on Average on Their Android Mobile Devices in Q1 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

San Francisco, CA<\/b> \u2014 June 6, 2018 \u2014 dfndr lab, the premier cybersecurity and anti-virus research arm of PSafe, staffed with the world\u2019s top information security experts with help from community collaboration, announced its latest findings from Q1 2018. The new study is based on data from cyber attack detections in Android smartphones from more than 21 million active users of the dfndr security app by PSafe. dfndr lab analyzes 200 million digital files to keep its software products current when it comes to protecting users\u2019 devices and staying ahead of cyber criminals.<\/span><\/p>\n

Who you are and where you live matters<\/b><\/p>\n

dfndr lab analyzes data by type of fraudulent activity, as well as detections by gender and region. The Q1 2018 study unveiled that men are twice as likely to click on malicious URLs than women, and they are more apt to fall for messenger schemes. Women, on the other hand, are more likely than men to fall for fake giveaways.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Southeast region was the primary target of cyber criminals using malicious links during the first quarter of 2018, with 746,000 detections. California, Texas, and Florida were the top three states where such activity was detected, accounting for 31.4 percent of all the malicious link detections in this past quarter.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe invest heavily in dfndr lab and rely tremendously on proprietary AI and machine learning so we can acquire the knowledge and build the skills we need to learn, detect, analyze, and alert our security team about cyberattacks, the latest malware and viruses, online scams, and cybercrime trends,\u201d said Marco DeMello, CEO, PSafe. \u201cAll of this rich intelligence is rolled into our suite of products to protect customers.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Beware fraudulent ads, spoofs, and phony SMS messages<\/b><\/p>\n

Fraudulent ads that involve spoofing well known and trusted brands continued to hold the top spot with 1.5 million detections, up more than half a million detections from last quarter. Just behind fraudulent ads, phishing scams took the second spot at 1.4M of the total detections, down from 2M in the last quarter, suggesting that other types of online attacks are on the rise and hackers might be trying new and more targeted tactics such as phishing scams.<\/span><\/p>\n

Phishing scams involve the use of spoofed emails and SMS messages that appear to come from well-known organizations asking users for personal information such as social security numbers, bank account credentials, credit card numbers, and passwords. Often times phishing attempts appear to come from websites, services, and businesses that the user may not even have an account with. Common tactics involve asking users to update personal information, issues with an order, or a problem processing a payment.<\/span><\/p>\n

The top three scams detected include:<\/span><\/p>\n