Android Malware Infestation a Fast Growing Problem, Report Says
New data published by Juniper Networks shows a whopping 472 percent increase in Android malware samples since July. Yikes! A little more than half of those threats are spyware, while 44 percent are classified as SMS Trojan horses, Juniper says.
All the gory details are listed in a ginormous infographic (see here), and it's not pretty. Malware isn't an idle threat, and according to Juniper, more than three-fourths of all Android smartphone and tablet users access sensitive business information from their Android devices.
In a related blog post, Juniper said it discovered a "trove of malicious applications aimed at Android users hosted across different Russia-based third party app stores," which serves as a reminder to only download Android apps from trusted locations, like Google's Android Market, Amazon, etc.
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Scary. I wonder why a lot of this kind of crap seems to be coming from Russia? |
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mcaffee app (sarcasm) |
Downloading from a trusted source can't be emphasized enough, and I'm glad you printed that! |
News:
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"I guess many people still think because its a smartphone or a tablet that they are safe from viruses and its a PC only issue. Like Super Dave above said, Downloading from a trusted source can't be emphasized enough." |
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Viruses have somewhat existed on Mobile Phones since the dawn of time, glad an article like this is brining mobile phone viruses to the forefront. |
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Of course, if we assume there were 3 malware apps in July, 2011, the a 472% increase would mean a total of around 14 or 15 such by today. That's as compared to several hundred THOUSAND such malicious packages in the wild for Windows (including Windows 8, if it's ever released). Funny how easy it is to manipulate idiots with statistics. |
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Do you ever have a positive thing to say? We welcome your input here either way but man, all that negativity... it must be exhausting after a while! :) |
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Even downloading from trusted sources can't be a guarantee but it certainly helps. Getting android apps from Android markets other than Google's/Amazon's and companies similar to them is like downloading music from limewire to your computer the potential is there to open yourself up to a whole pile of crap. I use a nice app called Lookout Mobile that scans every app that I download and while I don't rely on it to be perfect it adds a nice layer of protection and does not seem to effect the performance of my phone much. |
What'd be even better is if Google took some form of control in the monitoring of App Stores... I mean all of those infected apps came from russian app-stores and those stores had to get the word out right? If Google can find some sort of system to display which App Stores are genuine and which is not then it'll help wonders with the malware problem... If they manage to infect Android from the web browser, then it's a bigger problem but since it's through apps, it can be mostly contained. |
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i use lookout security on my android phone to protect it. i havent gotten a virus, nor have i gotten one on my pc in ages. You just have to be careful, thats all. |
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So what type of malware is most common? What does it do? |
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