According to a new report, hackers are targeting senior citizens and middle aged people on apps such as Facebook and Instagram. Hackers are targeting these people through Ransomware attacks. In the report, TikTok is also one of the apps that is being used by the hackers to launch the attacks.
According to a researcher from cyber security company Avast, hackers are primarily targeting people 65 years of age or older and also people between the ages 30 to 45 years. In these too, those people are especially targeted who usually login to these apps from a laptop or a computer. Whereas most of the age group people logging in from their phones are being targeted through mobile banking Trojans, adware, downloaders and FluBot SMS scams.
Instagram and TikTok are used to promote adware apps or Fleeceware. According to the report, apart from this, it seems like people of all ages are targeted through phishing attacks and romance scams.
According to Avast Threat Labs data, the company is blocking an average of 1.46 million ransomware attacks in every month of 2021. FluBot however is spreading far and wide everywhere including India.
Hackers use social engineering tactics to install malicious and other unwanted apps on the victim’s device. A message with a malicious link is sent to users through Instagram and TikTok. As soon as users click on it, the malicious app is installed in their device and hackers can easily control it.
The ransomware infects the user’s device and takes control of it and locks it. The hackers then use this opportunity to blackmail the user in a multitude of ways which are not limited to simply asking for money.
