Malware infection rate of smartphones is soaring – Android devices often the target

[Exterminator]

Smartphones are by far the most popular target of mobile malware, and the infection rate is soaring, according to new research by Nokia.

During the second half of 2016, the increase in smartphone infections was 83% following on the heels of a 96% increase during the first half of the year, according to Nokia’s latest Mobile Threat Intelligence Report gathered from devices on which Nokia NetGuard Endpoint Security is deployed in Europe, North America, Asia Pacific and the Middle East.

The percentage of infections among all phones still seems low – .9%, up from .49% during the first half 2016 – but the relative jump, 83%, is noteworthy.

Credit: Nokia Threat Intelligence Laboratories

In the second half of last year, of all the infections in mobile networks, 85% were against smartphones, which is an increase of 83% from the first half. Among these smartphones, Android devices are most often the target (81% of the time). iPhones fall victim less than 4% of the time.

These increases are fueled by a steep increase in the variety of mobile malware, particularly directed against Android devices. In January 2016 Nokia had less than 600,000 Android mobile malware samples in its database, but by the end of the year that had grown to just under 12 million.

Perhaps surprisingly, 15% of infections were registered against Windows PCs attached to mobile networks via wireless dongles or tethered to cell phones acting as wireless access points. While that’s the second most frequent target, the percentage of infections of these devices compared to smartphones has been on the decline since the middle of 2015. Then, Windows devices accounted for 80% of infections.

Attackers historically focused on Windows platforms because they were the most popular way of accessing the internet. “However, as the smartphone becomes the more preferred platform for accessing the internet, cybercrime is clearly moving in that direction,” Nokia says.

While the surge in attacks against mobile phones was most significant, the rate of increase against all forms of wireless devices including phones was less steep, up 25% in the last half of the year. The average infection rate over those six months was 1.08% of all devices, hitting a peak monthly rate of 1.35% in October.

 

[Winter Soldier]

Seeing the proliferation of existing malware on Android platform, it is highly likely that in the short-term future we will see injection at root level without user control.

 

[Parsh]

Seeing the proliferation of existing malware on Android platform, it is highly likely that in the short-term future we will see injection at root level without user control.

And that can be a horror!
Some such malware (though on a shallower level) already exist that can root your device without the user's knowledge, the installation of those can be from Play store (like this one) or from outside.
Dirtier malware are sure to come and user s' safe practices and better policing of Play store and other arenas by the authorities will be the basic and best lines of defense.

 

[Winter Soldier]

And that can be a horror!
Some such malware (though on a shallower level) already exist that can root your device without the user's knowledge, the installation of those can be from Play store (like this one) or from outside.
Dirtier malware are sure to come and user s' safe practices and better policing of Play store and other arenas by the authorities will be the basic and best lines of defense.

Disturbing scenario and unfortunately a lot of people are not absolutely aware of these risks, the attack surface evolves at the same time with the diffusion of the target object.

 

[Amelith Nargothrond]

I think think this is an advertising campaign for the new 3310

 

[oneeye]

Note to poster: the link to the report results in a 404 and I saw yesterday in an article @elreg, that it was originally behind a registration wall. In other words, you needed to register to be spammed by email, to download the report. Also, Google put out their "Happy Security Review of 2016" recently. But, as usual, they downplayed the severity. The biggest problem in Android security last year, or the later half, was the complexity, sophistication, of the latest malware, NOT needing to root devices. The malware author's have really stepped up their game in the later part of 2016. The malware utilizing duel instance, and plugin framework, are a real threat to all versions of Android right now. And the code obfuscation makes it real hard to find.

 

[BugCode]

I think think this is an advertising campaign for the new 3310

No need to campaign new 3310, i stay with my old original 3310, again i got it say

 

[jamescv7]

Two stories fold actually:

A) Android is the main target for smartphone attacks considering being open-source, free and widely used.
B) Windows PC on the other hand is because of mainstream OS, high market shares and widely used also.

Therefore attacks from that two different platforms are still consistent and evolve continuously, you need to be knowledgeable to avoid basic circumstances of situation.

 

[Winter Soldier]

Android is the main target for smartphone attacks considering being open-source,

Android is open source only in the core, its apps are closed (and often full of adware that collects user data). Android based itself on an open source core and a Linux kernel. Many confuse this with GNU/Linux, but Android doesn't has nothing to do with GNU.

The difference between these systems with the open core is in its complexity, there is GNU/Linux, in fact, with open source Linux kernel on which runs the GNU operating and free software.
Then there are systems like Android which have only an open source core/kernel.
An operating sistem is given by the set of kernel cores and applications that run on it and Android system is open source only in the kernel and in the core.
From this you can deduce that to say “Android is open source” or “Android is Linux” is wrong, committing the mistake of associating “Linux” (the kernel), to the GNU/Linux systems often incorrectly called simply “Linux”.