Description of methods of protection against the BankBot banking Trojan, which steals logins and passwords for mobile banking in Australia

Almost every modern smartphone, tablet or laptop has digital commerce or online banking services. It is fast and convenient; you can control your finances without having to visit a bank. You can make purchases and pay for it online without having to visit a store. Cybercriminals in most cases direct their efforts to hacking such services in order to steal personal data and financial resources of users. And online banking protection software is becoming a pressing issue.

What are banking Trojans?

Online criminals are becoming more sophisticated, and it is no longer enough for them to simply steal data. They perform a variety of operations to study user behavior, transaction schedules, cash balances, debts, and various financial habits. This information helps them target users who have large sums of money. They often go unnoticed, especially if the user does not have reliable mobile banking protection. Ordinary users can become victims of cyber thieves, but more often they are businessmen or entrepreneurs.

Cybercriminals begin stealing money with a phishing message. That is, it is a dangerous message that may contain a malicious attachment or link. By opening the attachment, you download a virus to the system, and by clicking on the link, the virus also penetrates the device. As a rule, these are banking Trojans whose purpose is to gain access to your financial accounts. For this reason, you need the best Trojan protection.

Recommendations for Internet banking protection

Experts in the field of cyber security give useful advice on how to reliably protect your financial data from fraudsters and virtual thieves. Follow these simple tips and your data will be reliably protected.

• If you need to download an application for online banking protection, then look for the installation file only on official websites. Always check the security of the application you are going to install. Alternatively, read people's reviews to find out their opinion about the program.
• Remember to update your software regularly. Cybercriminals use different methods to steal and they improve their skills every day. Update your system and software to fix the vulnerability of the device.
• Create strong passwords that do not have your name, date of birth, or other information that is easy to find. The combination should consist of at least 8 characters, letters and numbers. It is best to use a password generator, but you can find useful tips on how to create a super strong password. Experts advise having different passwords for mobile banking app protection and other accounts.
• If you use a mobile device more often, all applications should also be reliably protected from cyber fraud. When choosing the best protection for online banking, make sure that it has Online Payment Protection and not just antivirus software for the system.

PC and laptop owners also need reliable protection that will provide you with a secure browser so that you can enter personal data, bank details and perform banking transactions. For increased data privacy, make sure that the software offers data encryption and anti-phishing features.

Why is it important to protect yourself from the BankBot banking Trojan?

BankBot is a specific type of Trojan that targets the banking environment. Fraudsters control it remotely to collect users' banking details. To log into their accounts and steal data, cybercriminals use fake forms to access different banking applications. Against such a powerful and dangerous cyber attack, it is important that users have proven banking data protection.

The danger is that BankBot looks quite harmless but it has already settled in the Play Store. You download the application and it seems reliable and safe, you install and run it and trouble happens. It is important to have a reliable cybersecurity solution to immediately check the application after downloading. You may have Kaspersky Banking Protection installed or an antivirus from another reputable company.

The second danger of BankBot is its successful disguise. You have found apps with funny videos that have been downloaded from 3,000 to 5,000 times. This seems to inspire confidence and you also want to download this simple and interesting video application. It looks like a program that collects only the most popular videos from YouTube. When you install it, the virus starts working and penetrates your bank account. It can access data from more than 300 banks across the country.

Google has carefully monitored its virtual store and was able to identify more than 40 infected applications that were downloaded by users around the world more than 30 million times. The corporation is confident that it has rid its trading portal of dangerous programs, but users still do not fully trust this fact. Carefully check each application that you download with the help of digital banking fraud protection to protect your data and system. When choosing a proven antivirus, you need to make sure that it has an Anti-Hacking function. This can be enabled automatically or you will need to activate this tool in the program settings.

How to create a strong password?

Any of your online banking, social media and other app accounts require a strong password. This is not only to protect your personal information, but also your financial data, messages, videos or photos. Hacking an account can be a huge disaster: scammers can steal your money or personal photos to blackmail you later. It is very important to create a super strong password and there are several tips for this:

1. Choose a reliable banking protection scheme and protect your other accounts in the same way by creating a strong combination. Use a password generator if you find it difficult to come up with your own. This is a program that will create a secure combination for you and save it for logging into a particular profile. You can generate several passwords and save them in one place by protecting them with a master password.
2. Create a combination yourself using a specific phrase and taking capital letters from it. This is very simple and will be easy for you to remember. For example, your phrase is “I like apple punch at Christmas when it’s snowing.” In this case, your password will be ILAPatChrwits. You can also replace the letters of Christmas with numbers and then the combination will be even more secure because you added numbers - ILAPat25wits.
3. There are anti-viruses that are excellent not only as Trojan protection software but also as an opportunity to create a strong password. But you can do it too. Some resources ask to create a password of at least 8 characters, but this is not always enough to make the combination as secure as possible. Cybersecurity experts advise creating a password of at least 12 characters. Do not take letters or numbers that are in order, it will be easier for hackers to guess this.
4. An interesting method for creating a password is to choose random words and connect them with symbols. For example, you love the sea and you need to choose 4 words with associations. For example, it will be the sea, the Sun, sand and cocktails. Connect them with the @ symbols or numbers. Then your combination will look like – sea1Sun@sand@cocktail. Here we have inserted the number 1 to make it easier for you to remember that the Sun is one of a kind.

Another fun way to create a password is to use emoticons. Of course, you can't create a combination by pasting a picture there, but you can use different symbols and letters to create an authentic emoticon. For example, it could look like this (~.~) (o_O) or like this \_(ツ)_/¯. These emoticons are usually quite short, but you can add a few numbers or letters after it.

Threats by BankBot to mobile banking

Banking Trojans 2019 seemed quite weak, but now such software has become more powerful and reliable. Just a few years and developers have reached a high level to protect user data and their data. We have already told you how to protect your online bank, but there are also other ways. For example, this is Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). Users need to enable this feature for all their profiles; this will provide an additional level of security. Also, good advice is to monitor threats in real time. If you have proven cybersecurity, then perform real-time checks at least once a week.

How to reduce the probability of a threat by BankBot

Many mobile device users think that their gadget already has reliable protection and banking protection is active. But this is not always the case, because the built-in protection in your iOS or Android does not provide 100% protection from all modern virtual attacks and threats. Therefore, experts advise to insure the system by installing proven cybersecurity software. Such programs work autonomously and warn if your device is under threat.