WhatsApp tops in phishing links, India at number 3

A recent study has shown that globally the biggest share of detected malicious links between December 2020 and May 2021 were sent via WhatsApp at 89.6 per cent.

Hyderabad: If you use WhatsApp, then you must have been a victim of malicious link that look very promising but actually have a hidden agenda of either siphoning off your data or your money. And a recent study has shown that globally the biggest share of detected malicious links between December 2020 and May 2021 were sent via WhatsApp at 89.6 per cent. This was followed by Telegram at 5.6 per cent and Viber at 4.7 per cent, while Hangouts has less than 1 per cent share.

However, India stood at third position in experiencing the highest number of phishing attacks at 7 per cent preceded by Russia at first position at 46 per cent and Brazil at 15 per cent, an anonymized data, voluntarily provided by Kaspersky Internet Security for Android users said. The dats also showed that globally, 480 detections were recorded per day.

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According to research, messenger apps outstripped social networks by 20 per cent in 2020, in terms of popularity among users. Results show that in 2020, the global audience for messengers amounted to 2.7 billion people, and by 2023 it is expected to grow to 3.1 billion, that is almost 40 per cent of the world’s population.

Kaspersky has informed that users can use their safe messaging feature for Android that prevents users from opening malicious links that they receive in messenger apps. Kaspersky analysed anonymised clicks on phishing links across messenger apps and found that between December 2020 and May 2021, 91,242 detections were recorded globally.

In terms of the number of phishing attacks recorded per user on WhatsApp, Brazil (177) and India (158) led the way.

Follow these simple tips to avoid falling these scams:

· Be vigilant and look for misspellings or other irregularities in links.

· A ‘chain scheme’ is common practice, where a scammer asks a user to share the malicious link with his contacts which then looks legitimate to other users, as it is from a person they know. Be aware and don’t share any suspicious links with your contacts.

· Even if messages and websites look real, the hyperlinks, most likely, will have incorrect spelling, or they can redirect you to a different place.

· Even if a message or letter came from one of your best friends, remember that their accounts could also have been hacked. Remain cautious in any situation. Even if a message seems friendly, be wary of links and attachments.

· Install a trusted security solution and follow its recommendations. Security solutions will solve the majority of problems automatically and alert you if necessary.

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