Windows Malware more profitable than Android Malware

[Jack]

Symantec recently released a white-paper called “Motivations of Recent Android Malware [PDF]” in which they demo the top 7 Android monetization schemes deployed by cybercriminals to get a hold of your money. The results reveal that the profit hackers make by deploying such malware is far from the one obtained in Windows operations.

Summary:
Monetization is a key factor necessary for the rise of mobile malware. Currently, the mobile technology landscape provides some malicious monetization opportunities, but none at the revenue scale achievable in Windows. Most mobile monetization schemes have an extremely low revenue-per-infection ratio and thus, to
become worthwhile require a large number of infections. This ratio could increase in the future when more devices store credentials backed by monetary funds. Further, for each attack we have seen on Android, none were
repeated. It is possible that the attackers did not generate enough revenue, and thus did not repeat the effort.
So while we will continue to see malicious Android applications, additional advances in the mobile technology
space that allow greater monetization are likely required before malicious Android applications reach parity with
Window

You can read the full report here.