Putting the shoot after the wound is not optimal, but it is something we usually do in the digital world. When our accounts or passwords – or those of someone close – are violated, is when we start worrying about cybersecurity. We change the passwordsWe add Two -step verification systems And we see what we can do so that Our accounts and devices are safer.
And, between All types of malwarethere is a tremendously annoying and dangerous one: the spy software that performs Zero-Click attacks. The good thing is that we can protect ourselves by acquiring a simple habit: restart the mobile.
Zero click. When we talk about such vulnerability, we refer to a security failure that allows someone to enter malicious software on our device without having to perform any action. Taking advantage of a mobile safety failure or PCs, hackers are capable of ‘strain’ software on the device without having downloaded anything or punctured in strange links.
That is why it is called ‘Zero Click’, since, to open the doors of our device to another type of malware -like phishing, for example -we do have to perform an action. This is something that has been used recently in apps such as Outlook or in him iPhoneand the same thing always happens: failures in the safety of the app or the system opens the door torque to the click zero malware.
Pegasus. These vulnerabilities usually occur the same day to launch a new version of an app or an operating system. Taking advantage of possible programming failures and safety gaps, malware can go through a back door without us knowing. And these attacks usually go hand in hand with spy software, very difficult to identify by the user, but that has almost ease access for our device.
Surely sounds to you Pegasusthat spy software developed by the Israeli company that He infected mobiles of thousands of journalists, politicians and other personalities. Using capacities similar To those who attack taking advantage of the Zero-Click, it allows to see, even, conversations in encrypted apps.
Through WhatsApp. But it is not the only one, since recently, spy software known as Graphite infected the mobile of several people using a WhatsApp failure. Rocky Cole is the co -founder of a cybersecurity company and has commented A ZDNET that Graphite sneaked into the mobile through an image or a PDF sent by WhatsApp To the mobile of the victims, and the underlying processes that are activated when files are received in the app are the ones that the attackers explode to infect the device.
It is not known, at least publicly, if Graphite can move to the core of iOS or only operate on WhatsApp, but could take advantage of an “escalation of privileges” – a vulnerability of the app – to move outside the messaging application. Cole states that this attack was aimed at concrete people, but comments that it is an emerging threat to all. “And the world is not, at all, prepared to deal with something like that,” he says.
Tract it as a computer. In the report, Cole leaves the wedge of the advertising of its application Iverify, but also two tips that are not unknown, but it is worth remembering. The first is that we should acquire the habit of restarting or off the mobile every day. The reason is that many of these vulnerabilities exist only in memory and, not being files, in theory the malware should be eliminated when cleaning the memory after a restart.
The bad thing is that it is easy for the spy software to return to the device, so something that it also recommends is to install the updates as soon as they are available. These patches usually cover the vulnerabilities found by both companies and external groups, such as Mozilla Security Groupwho analyzes the software and warns those responsible to patch it.
Better turn off. Although several security experts agree that we should not leave the mobile on 24/7, not everyone agrees that a simple restart can solve these problems. The reason is that, when restarting the device, some mobiles try to maintain everything as it was before, storing certain data in memory and these being the ones that would take advantage of the hackers.
The NSA – the United States National Security Agency – commented that It is best to turn it off completely and wait a few seconds before turning it on again. In this way, all applications have to start from scratch again. And, according to the NSA, it is something we should do once a week.
Beyond security. The NSA itself coincides with school that restarting or turning off the mobile is not a magical solution against this type of malware, but it can stop cybercriminals and make them engineer new ways to maintain access, perhaps being these more visible for device safety systems.
But well, apart from security, both on iPhone and, above all, in Android mobiles, make a restart every so often Close processes and release RAM. It happens, as we say, especially in Android, where the system code can ‘fight’ against the manufacturer’s customization layer, making the mobile not do well that we should have been without restarting/off because there will be many waste in the RAM.
Bad? That is something that forces us to acquire a new habit. Turning it only takes us for a few seconds, but if we are not used, the easiest thing is for us to forget. The good thing is that many mobiles already include restart and off options programmed in their adjustments.
Image | Xataka
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