What is Malware?
Malware is the use of malicious individuals or groups to damage any programmable device, network or service.
It is a comprehensive term for any type of malware designed to perform unwanted actions. Malware serves many different malicious purposes, such as capturing users' personal and financial information, stealing sensitive and critical information such as passwords and passwords, unauthorized access, and rendering devices inoperable.
When Should I Suspect Malware?
If you have been notified by our bank on suspicion of having malware on your device,
If you notice abnormal activity on your devices similar to the following situations:
- Your device suddenly slows down, freezes or overheats,
- Rapid decrease in battery even though no action is taken,
- Unintentional closing of your device, applications or application tabs
- There is an application on your device that you did not install,
- If there is an application installed outside of Google Play and Apple Store
- The downloaded application requests many permissions beyond its intended use,
- SMS notifications cannot be displayed in the inbox.
Methods to Protect from Malware
If you have received a malware message while logging into the QNB Mobile application or if this information has been sent via SMS, if there is a suspicion of malware or if you notice abnormal activity on your devices, you can take precautions and clean your device by following the steps below:
Block your device's internet access very quickly. Put your device on airplane mode.
You can proceed with 1 of the 2 options below.
A) You can get professional support for removing malware from your device's authorized service.
B) Or if you want to do this yourself, the most reliable way to get rid of malware is to reset your device to factory settings. However, restoring factory settings will delete all your data. If your important data is not backed up regularly, you may experience data loss.
- Contacts, photos, videos, etc. Back up only the personal data you need to applications with which you can synchronize the data connected to your accounts online (Google or iTunes cloud, etc.) or to a different computer. (Our bank is not responsible for data loss on your phone.)
- Reset your phone to factory settings.
- Install QNB mobile banking application. Make sure the app is running and doesn't give the same error again.
- Contacts, photos, videos, etc. Restore your personal data in a controlled manner from backups.
- Restore all your applications only through the official application markets Google Play and Apple AppStore. Do not install applications/software from sources of unknown origin.
- After restoring all your applications and data, in the last step, make sure that QNB mobile application is working and does not give the same error again. If you receive a malware message when logging into the mobile application or if you are notified via SMS, start the process from the beginning and do not reinstall the applications you are suspicious of.
- If the problem persists or you are not sure about the security of your device, you can contact a professional security expert and get support from the authorized service of your device.
For your safety;
- Be careful to download software, applications or files from reliable sources. Prefer official websites or app stores. (App Store, Google Play, Huawei AppGallery etc.)
- Do not install applications/software from sources of unknown origin. Make sure that installing applications from unknown sources on your mobile device is turned off.
- Check the permissions requested by the applications you installed. Be suspicious of applications that require administrative permissions or very broad privileges for your phone.
- Apart from known common applications, choose carefully for new applications whose security you are not sure about.
- Keep your device operating system and applications up to date.
- Use security software to prevent malware infection on your devices and to detect and block vulnerabilities and malicious behavior of installed applications
- Enable the opening screen lock option on your mobile devices. Restrict your device access with face recognition, password and PIN usage.
- Be careful of fraud attempts made through social media channels and mobile applications and do not fall into the campaign trap.
- Carefully examine e-mail messages, messages from text messages (SMS) and other instant communication applications, and social media advertisements that contain links and file attachments that are designed to infect malicious software and direct to fake sites and applications. Do not click on links or open file attachments in messages whose source you are not sure of.
- Remote access tools installed on your device are vulnerable to malicious use. Be careful not to give anyone remote access to your device.
- Enable two-factor authentication (2FA) on all your accounts whenever possible.
- Determine your internet and mobile banking security settings in line with your needs and usage habits.
- Your data transferred over malicious broadcasting networks that provide free and unencrypted Wi-Fi connections in public areas can be monitored, seized, and your devices can be infected with malicious software. Do not connect to unencrypted networks whose source you are not sure of.
- In suspicious cases, immediately change the passwords of all previously logged-in accounts on your device (Banking, e-government, e-mail, social media accounts, etc.) from a secure device.
