Mobile malware increased six-fold in 2011
A Kaspersky Lab report has shown that the number of malicious programmes, targeting mobile devices, increased 6.4 times in 2011.
This includes 5,255 new malware modifications, and 178 new families identified throughout the year.
The company also uncovered more new malicious programmes targeting mobile devices, than over the entire 2004 – 2010 period.
As well as the dramatic growth in the number of mobile threats, 2011 also saw some qualitative changes, according to Kaspersky.
While unsophisticated SMS Trojans are still the dominant behaviour among all detected mobile threats – their share of all mobile threats has fallen from 44.2% in 2010, to 36.6% in 2011.
Backdoors, which were barely used by cyber criminals in 2010, accounted for the second most prevalent behaviour in 2011.
The surge in interest in backdoors has been sparked by virus writers’ growing interest in the Android OS, and the overwhelming majority of detected mobile backdoors target Android smartphones.
The third-most common mobile threat behaviour is spyware – which steals personal user data and/or data about the infected mobile device.
When it came to platforms, a steady rise in the number of threats targeting Android was observed during the last six months of 2011.
One of the main events of 2011, was the first case of malware being spread with the help of QR codes. Due to their ease of use, cyber criminals have started to use malicious QR codes with an encrypted link leading to the same threats that other traditional URLs lead to.
Malicious QR codes are not only used by virus writers (or groups of virus writers), but are becoming more common among the infamous affiliate programmes – which will soon ensure that they become popular among cyber criminals.
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