The newly released Facebook Messenger application has been recorded to have been downloaded over 500 million times on android phones alone despite the constant onslaught about it
from the public.

Upon releasing the Facebook Messenger app, a policy was added to it to force the users to install the separate messenger app to continue to use the Facebook chat on smartphones or tablets. Some of the application permissions are the following;

• Allows the app to call phone numbers without your intervention (which may result in unexpected charged or calls)
• Allows the app to record audio with your built in microphone, which allows the app to record audio at any time without your confirmation.
•  Allows the app to take pictures as well as videos with the camera, this allows the app to use the camera at any time without your confirmation.
• Allows the app to send SMS (text) messages. This could result in unexpected charges.

All of these permissions seem a little sinister and malicious as with all of these, Facebook can literally record every conversation, text message and camera footage that your phone or tablet takes! This is what the public have been very concerned with as they do not trust Facebook with all of this ‘power’ that they have to use the app for malicious reasons, which has caused the app to be rated 1 star on the app store by the public. Although this is a free application with no in app purchases, it is clear that Facebook is making money on this by exploiting user data to companies and the government.

As news of the Ebola virus is spreading faster than the disease in West Africa, cyber criminals have been using the disease as a way to steal peoples passwords through emails.

A blog post made by Symantec mentions the different ways these criminals use to try and make people install different viruses onto their computers, such as; Phishing viruses (can be used to steal passwords and sensitive information) trojan viruses and mole viruses. Symantec’s blog -which was mentioned above- shows details on the criminals methods in which they use to get people to install these viruses, two of the campaigns use fake Ebola reports in the form of a power point as attachments. The people that download the attachments get infected with the trojan.Zbot virus and in the second campaign the cyber criminals send out an email that is impersonating a telecom provider which has a presentation attaches about the Ebola virus, the title for this is usually; “EBOLA – Presentation.pdf.zip” which actually runs and executed the trojan.blueso virus on the email readers computer.

The cyber criminals are also using fake websites to gain passwords, by stating that there has been a cure made for Ebola which is untold to the public, they then leave a link for the victim to click on which will then take them onto a fake website which they will be required to log in. Once the victim has entered their details the hackers will have access to their username and password which they entered and will be able to use that for any reason they like.

Here at MadComputerSolutions, we advise you to be safe with your emails and always be on the look out for suspicious and spontaneous emails, and if anything seems odd about an email, be cautious and don’t download any attachments or log in to any strange websites that have been linked.