Home ›› 04 Jun 2022 ›› Front
The four major telecom operators of the country have been hit by 5,25,820 malware infections throughout the first three months of this year.
Grameenphone (GP), Robi Axiata, Banglalink and Teletalk together detected this significant infection rate of various malware for network communication between January and March.
The cyber threat intelligence researchers of Bangladesh Government’s e-Government Computer Incident Response Team (BGD e-GOV CIRT) disclosed the information in the Horizon Scanning Report for telecom operators published in late April.
According to Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, until the end of April, there were approximately 183.38 million mobile phone users across the country.
GP, which has the largest customer base, suffered 294,657 malware attacks with 47 unique counts of infection, led by the virus known as “android.hummer” that has a 24.4 per cent infection rate.
Robi came in second with 104,578 attacks with 40 unique counts of infection, led by the virus known as “avalanche-andromeda” that has a 12.85 per cent infection rate.
Banglalink suffered 98,423 attacks with 31 unique counts of infection, led prominently by both “android.hummer” and “avalanche-andromeda” — which have 21.64 per cent and 20.47 per cent infection rates, respectively.
Ankit Sureka, head of Corporate Communications and Sustainability at Banglalink, told The Business Post, “Malware attacks happen if users browse unsafe online platforms on their mobile devices. It doesn’t matter what SIM they use. Operators can’t do anything about that.”
“As an IT company, Banglalink is well-equipped to thwart any cyber-attack or malwares with its different layers of firewall,” he said.
“What we can do is make people aware of the risk and have them not browse or click any suspicious content. We have carried out campaigns in this regard,” Ankit added.
State-owned Teletalk, which has with the smallest subscriber base, suffered 28,162 malware attacks and 31 unique counts of infection — with “android.rootnik,” “android.hummer,” “avalanche-andromeda,” “android.backdoor.prizmes” and “virut” having about equal shares of infection rate.
Dhaka was the top infected region for all four operators, said the report created by aggregating data from threat intelligence sources, peer organization feeds and open-source intelligence assessments.
According to the report, the researchers’ observation suggested that these major malware infections were presumably delivered by malicious applications via authorized app stores on Android and iOS platforms or via other means.
BGD e-GOV CIRT conducted the research to alert the telecom operators about malicious communications passing through their network so that they can take necessary measures to reduce risks and avoid potential cyber-attacks.
The agency suggested the operators a list of measures to protect their network, including checking their IT infrastructure and toolset to detect the Indicator of Compromises mentioned in the report.
