Tech News

Signal Dreads Phishing Attacks

There have been many applications that a user has entrusted his implicit trust as they believe they can be relied upon. You have online apps that are created for users’ convenience.

WhatsApp gave way to SMS service where now you can not only send and receive messages but can also video chat with your near and dear ones sitting in the same room with them being on the other side of the country or even globe.

In Brief

Signal too is an excellent messaging service that many users have installed on their smartphones that has its own relevance despite receiving competition from the likes of WhatsApp and other messaging applications.

However, the greater the technicalities of any application, the more vulnerable it becomes to cyber criminals who are sitting in the dark alleys of the virtual world in the guise of fake accounts and waiting for unsuspecting victims to prey upon.

They first con these victims through sweet talking, gain their confidence and succeed in honey-trapping them thereby putting them in a vulnerable position and then blackmail them for money.

Then are criminals that are well-versed in advanced software and technology that they should be using for the good of mankind but sadly, both for them and their victims, they misuse their talent and skills for luring innocent victims into confidence and then siphon off their sensitive data for their monetary benefits.

There are different kinds of cyber criminals that commit financial crime through hacking and yet there are those that want to use confidential data of their users in order to benefit a particular organization.

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Phishing

Phishing is a social engineering act where a hacker, or any cyber criminal for that matter, sends a fraudulent message in such a convincing manner that a common person can mistake as coming from a reliable source where they first con a victim and trick him into revealing important and sensitive information to the attack.

It can also be accomplished by sending unscrupulous or malicious software to the victim and trick him into following the given terms and conditions in return for a reward, which many inexperienced people, sadly, fall prey to and end up paying a huge price, both literally and figuratively.

This act is termed Clickbait where hackers send a link that is supposedly from a reliable source where they ask victims to click on it to get unlimited lucrative offers and rewards or come up with an interesting offer or scheme from an official institution or contest, for example, that have to be completed by following the given steps, which can be done by clicking on the given link.

Once the victim clicks on the link, he/she is asked to complete the steps or give their financial details to complete the process for payment. Highly advanced and skilled hackers don’t even have to do that much as simply clicking on the link allows him to siphon off your confidential data.

Phishing is more of a practice prevalent in the corporate field where business organizations hire social engineers well versed in the art form to hack into the rival organizations’ official database and siphon off data that might prove beneficial to them and curb their rivals’ standing in the market.

Phone Data Breach

Signal has come up with the bad news that more than 1900 phone users’ data has been breached by phishing attackers. The news coming out is that their phone numbers have been revealed in a phishing attack on Twilio Inc., which is the verification service provider to Signal.

It is highly probable that the attackers may have gained access to the SMS verification code used to register with Signal, but the contact lists, profile info, and messaging history was not revealed, which the company revealed some time back.

Signal has claimed that attackers could have attempted to re-register the number to another device or found out that the number was registered to Signal. Luckily, the company is being working together with Twilio to sort out the matter through investigation, who should be given credited for discovering the attack.

China too has fallen prey to a phishing attack when an attacker claimed to have obtained personal info of around 50 million users of a Covid health mobile app, which is the second claim of a breach of a financial hub in China in a month.

Signal and Twilio have joined hands and are thoroughly investigating the matter in a bid to sort it out so that the 1900 phone users whose numbers have been revealed don’t have to lose their personal data.