Some scammers even 'weaponize' legitimate apps, turning real programs into spying machines that siphon your location, contact and other data away from legal enterprises and funnel it into the black market.

It could trick you into paying for a fake dating app. This trend suggests that cyber scam artists are honing their craft. While the number of attempted mobile device hacks increased by just over a third, the total number of new malware applications discovered by McAfee researchers in the second quarter was double the number found in the first. It appears the onslaught will only grow worse. Malware attacks on Android phones grew by 35 percent to nearly 18,000 new samples in the second quarter of 2013, according to McAfee. But with the rise of mobile devices, scammers have added mobile apps to their repertoire. It's easy to think of spam and phishing as email-based scams. Quicklist:title: Mobile Apps That Are Unfamiliar to Youtext: With that in mind, here are five links you should never, ever click. Cyber ninjas have become far more creative, sophisticated and inscrutable. If you think the most common cyber scam still involves deposed Nigerian royalty eliciting your help to extract fortunes from African banks, your time machine has stalled. 'This trend is also reflected by warnings from law enforcement and federal agencies around the globe.' 'During the past two quarters we have catalogued more ransomware than in all previous periods combined,' MacAfee found. In the second quarter of 2013 alone, the number of new samples multiplied to more than 320,000, (which was double the number in the first quarter of this year). In a recent report from McAfee, an Internet security company, there were fewer than 25,000 samples of ransomware catalogued per quarter in the first half of 2011. The number of people entrapped by this type of scam has been increasing exponentially. The folks behind that scam were actually based in Russia, SC Magazine reported, not NSA headquarters. You are then offered a sort of Hobson's choice: Pay a fine immediately, or face prosecution for downloading child pornography. You try to navigate away, but a warning screen branded by the National Security Administration's Internet Surveillance Program pops up with the message: 'Your computer has been locked due to suspicion of illegal content downloading and distribution.' Suddenly your computer screen fills with illegal pornographic images of minors. You're innocently surfing the Web, maybe on an unfamiliar site, not paying close attention.

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