A recent report has highlighted the growing number of cyber attacks on smartphones in the UK. The attacks, which often take the form of email scams and digital fraud, have left consumers at risk, and cost £6.6bn each year, according to the Commons Public Account Committee.
While another report by the same committee stated that the number of attacks on smartphones has risen by an astonishing 800% in just four months, which was due in part to people unwittingly downloading rogue or dangerous apps onto their phone, MPS have places the blame on the current UK consumer protection laws, which they slammed as 'insufficient' in protecting the public from marketing scams, such as bogus lotteries.
In the last year it's been estimated that UK consumers have lost around £4.8bn in total on such scams, while British shoppers are losing money to rogue traders, and email phishing scams, that pretend to be from a trusted source such as their bank or another financial institution, that then persuade the user to part with personal information, such as their bank account number, passwords, credit card numbers and PIN.
However, while smartphone users may be vulnerable to cyber attacks, a little bit of common sense could help protect them against this sort of problem. This includes only downloading certain apps from their app store, such as apps from trusted and verified sources, and not opening any email that seem suspicious on their phone – if something about an email seems a little off, then trust your instincts, don't open it, and delete it along with the rest of your junkmail.