- Jan 24, 2011
- 9,378
As the adoption of mobile devices continues to grow rapidly and businesses increasingly provide on-the-go access to corporate assets, the mobile malware landscape is evolving to take advantage of mainstream user behavior. In a sign of the times, web ads directing users to malicious sites have eclipsed pornography as the leading source of mobile malware encounters.
According to a new report from Blue Coat Systems, web ads are responsible for 20% of mobile user run-ins with malware. That is almost triple the rate in November 2012, when web ads accounted for only 5.7% of mobile malware.
Conversely, porn as a watering-hole bonanza for cybercriminals is waning. It accounted for 22% of attacks in 2012, but that percentage has dropped significantly since then. “Last year, when Blue Coat Security Labs looked at the mobile malware landscape, pornography was the leading threat vector for mobile users,” the report noted. “This year, it has dropped nearly six points and is the third leading threat vector, responsible to driving users to malware 16% of the time.”
Partly contributing to the decline is the fact that users simply don’t access pornography that frequently anymore. "Smaller screens and more difficult text entry methods have changed how we access and view online content," the report added. "So it’s not surprising that it also changes how we are exposed to malicious content."
However, pornography remains the most dangerous category of content for mobile users.
"With web ads, the rise as a threat vector correlated with a rise in web ad requests," Blue Coat said in the report. "The story is different for pornography. Requests for pornography on mobile devices don’t even reach 1% of all requested content, yet it accounts for more than 16% of all attacks."
The firm noted an increasing divergence of mobile and PC threat vectors when it comes to web surfing.
“Interestingly, when malware first moved to the Internet, pornography was one of the leading sources of malware for desktop users,” the report said. “The prevalence of pornography as the leading threat vector for desktop users has ebbed, giving way to attacks that target much larger user populations, such as search engine poisoning or social networking sites. It is reasonable to expect that the same will be true for the mobile environment, especially considering that in both environments pornography is not a frequently requested category of content.”
However, it turns out that mobile users present a much different picture from the desktop. Search engines barely crack the top 10 – sending unsuspecting users to malware only 3.13% of the time.
Read more: http://www.infosecurity-magazine.co...-overtakes-porn-as-top-mobile-malware-threat/
According to a new report from Blue Coat Systems, web ads are responsible for 20% of mobile user run-ins with malware. That is almost triple the rate in November 2012, when web ads accounted for only 5.7% of mobile malware.
Conversely, porn as a watering-hole bonanza for cybercriminals is waning. It accounted for 22% of attacks in 2012, but that percentage has dropped significantly since then. “Last year, when Blue Coat Security Labs looked at the mobile malware landscape, pornography was the leading threat vector for mobile users,” the report noted. “This year, it has dropped nearly six points and is the third leading threat vector, responsible to driving users to malware 16% of the time.”
Partly contributing to the decline is the fact that users simply don’t access pornography that frequently anymore. "Smaller screens and more difficult text entry methods have changed how we access and view online content," the report added. "So it’s not surprising that it also changes how we are exposed to malicious content."
However, pornography remains the most dangerous category of content for mobile users.
"With web ads, the rise as a threat vector correlated with a rise in web ad requests," Blue Coat said in the report. "The story is different for pornography. Requests for pornography on mobile devices don’t even reach 1% of all requested content, yet it accounts for more than 16% of all attacks."
The firm noted an increasing divergence of mobile and PC threat vectors when it comes to web surfing.
“Interestingly, when malware first moved to the Internet, pornography was one of the leading sources of malware for desktop users,” the report said. “The prevalence of pornography as the leading threat vector for desktop users has ebbed, giving way to attacks that target much larger user populations, such as search engine poisoning or social networking sites. It is reasonable to expect that the same will be true for the mobile environment, especially considering that in both environments pornography is not a frequently requested category of content.”
However, it turns out that mobile users present a much different picture from the desktop. Search engines barely crack the top 10 – sending unsuspecting users to malware only 3.13% of the time.
Read more: http://www.infosecurity-magazine.co...-overtakes-porn-as-top-mobile-malware-threat/
