Pierluigi Paganini
December 15, 2014
A few weeks ago I was contacted by LogDog, a company that has developed is free protection app from hacking attacks and identity theft, the developer asked me to try the application so I suggested them to conduct an analysis based on the data collected in Novemner by the mobile application.
Basically, the mobile app triggers an alert if there is suspicious activity in the user’s account, including Gmail, Facebook, Dropbox and other web services. Analyzing over 10,000 user accounts, the researchers have discovered that:
Facebook undergoes the most hacking attempts
Among the several online accounts monitored by the LogDog application, including Facebook, Gmail, Yahoo, Evernote, Dropbox and more, Facebook profiles received almost twice (61%) the number of hacking attempts as Gmail accounts (38%). It is interesting to note that the most common accounts users choose to monitor are Facebook and Gmail.
Most severe alerts come out of the United States
The LogDog mobile app includes tracking of “anomaly indicators”, abnormal activities related to account access. For example, if the user is located in one country and the account undergoes an entry attempt from a different location, this could generate a security alert.
“Our November findings indicate that 63% of the most severe alerts occurred within the United States, a much greater amount than the second highest severe alerts geography, which was India with 21% of the most severe alerts.” states the report.
Most hacking attempts happen on Tuesday
The average number of hacking attempts varies widely among different days of the week. In November, the majority of hacking alerts occurred on Tuesdays, summing up to 17% of the total weekly alerts. Meanwhile, Fridays enjoyed the fewest alerts, totaling only 12% of the total weekly alerts.
2 Factor Authentication is rarely used
This is a bad news, only a fraction of the accounts (4.3%) adopted a two-factor authentication mechanism to protect the account.
The report includes a suggestion for the user that will be present also in the next issues. This month the suggestion is related to the Third-party apps.
Insight of the month: Third-party apps can access your accounts!
Third-party applications are often used by threat actors to access to their Gmail and other accounts. A large number of access alerts come in from Ashburn, Virginia, which is home to one of Amazon’s larger server farms. This is also where many of the most popular apps are hosted.
Tip: Make sure you review app permissions carefully to understand what information and accounts your apps have access to. Use this link to manage your Google permissions
About LogDog
LogDog acts as your mobile security “watch dog” for Android, providing around-the-clock detection for suspicious activity and unauthorized access to your online accounts. The app requires none of your personal information in order to maintain your privacy and security. When a hacking attack is detected, you immediately receive an intrusion alert, allowing you to take control of your account before it gets hacked. To learn more about us, visit LogDog online.
(Security Affairs – LogDog, mobile app )
