The number of mobile malware infections increased by 17% during the first six months of 2014, which is almost double the rate seen in 2013. It mirrors a similar infection rate in residential fixed-line networks, from a 9% increase in December 2013 to 18% at the end of June 2014.
These figures come from communications specialist Alcatel-Lucent, which estimates that 15 million mobile devices worldwide were infected with malware.
Overall, the mobile infection rate was 0.65% during the first half of 2014, compared to 0.55% at the end of 2013. Android devices accounted for 60% of all infections via a mobile network, while infections on Apple iPhone and BlackBerry devices made up less than 1%. Most of the other infections were Windows laptops connected to a mobile phone, USB dongle or mobile WiFi hub,
Kevin McNamee, security architect and director of Alcatel-Lucent’s Kindsight Security Labs, said “Android smartphones are the easiest malware target, but Windows laptops are still the favorite of hard core professional cybercriminals. The quality and sophistication of most Android malware is still behind the more mature Windows PC varieties. Android malware makes no serious effort to conceal itself and relies on unsuspecting people to install an infected app.”
[Kindsight Security Labs Malware Report: H1 2014 (pdf)]