AgenciesMumbai: Cybersecurity firm Kaspersky in a report said that fraudulent browser push notifications as a means of phishing and advertising is gaining popularity. The number of users hit by the problem has been growing month-on-month this year, it said.
Monthly number of users affected has grown from 1,722,545 in January to 5,544,530 in September 2019, it said in its research note.
“Useful user-friendly features, such as push notifications, are easy-to-use instruments for scams based on social engineering techniques, and therefore their growing popularity is not entirely unexpected,” according to the firm.
Some of the unconventional methods to trick and force people to sign up for subscriptions it said were, passing off subscription consent as another action, such as a ‘CAPTCHA’, switching the ‘accept’ and ‘decline’ buttons on subscription alerts mid-action, showing notifications from phishing copies of popular websites and showing fraudulent ‘subscribe’ pop-ups on websites.
According to Artemy Ovchinnikov, Security Researcher at Kaspersky, “Users have to remain attentive and cautious when interacting with pop-ups and only allow push notifications if they are completely sure the alerts are useful and come from trusted sources”
Monthly number of users affected has grown from 1,722,545 in January to 5,544,530 in September 2019, it said in its research note.
Browser push notifications were introduced several years ago as a useful tool that kept readers informed with regular updates, but today they are often used to bombard website visitors with unsolicited adverts or even encourage them to download malicious software, Kaspersky said.
“Useful user-friendly features, such as push notifications, are easy-to-use instruments for scams based on social engineering techniques, and therefore their growing popularity is not entirely unexpected,” according to the firm.
Some of the unconventional methods to trick and force people to sign up for subscriptions it said were, passing off subscription consent as another action, such as a ‘CAPTCHA’, switching the ‘accept’ and ‘decline’ buttons on subscription alerts mid-action, showing notifications from phishing copies of popular websites and showing fraudulent ‘subscribe’ pop-ups on websites.
According to Artemy Ovchinnikov, Security Researcher at Kaspersky, “Users have to remain attentive and cautious when interacting with pop-ups and only allow push notifications if they are completely sure the alerts are useful and come from trusted sources”
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