Android Gingerbread, ICS emerge as top malware targets: Report
According to Kaspersky Lab experts, Android versions 2.3.6 Gingerbread and 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich have emerged as the top targets for cyber criminals.
The analysis of the mobile malware shows a rapid growth of in the number of new malware for Android in third quarter of 2012. The Kaspersky Lab report shows Android 2.3.6 Gingerbread accounted for 28 percent of all blocked attempts to install malware, while the second most commonly attacked version was the new 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich, which accounted for 22 percent of attempts.
“Although Gingerbread was released back in September 2011, due to the segmentation of the Android device market it still remains one of the most popular versions, which, in turn, attracts increased interest from cybercriminals,” commented Yuri Namestnikov, Senior Malware Analyst at Kaspersky Lab.
“The popularity of the most recent version of the Android OS – Ice Cream Sandwich – among virus writers can be explained by the fact that the devices running the latest versions of the OS are more suitable for online activities. Unfortunately, users actively surfing the web often end up on malicious sites.”
According to the report, more than one half of all malware detected on user smartphones turned out to be SMS Trojans, which are the malicious programs that steal money from victims’ mobile accounts by sending SMS messages to premium rate numbers.
The report reveals the OpFake family is the most widespread (38.3 percent of all the malicious programs detected for Android) among all the mobile malware families. All the programs in this family disguise themselves as OperaMini.
A fifth of the malicious programs detected on user devices are versatile Trojans, most of which belong to the Plangton family. After being installed on a device, these Trojans collect service data on the telephone, send it to the command server and wait for the cybercriminals’ commands. Specifically, malicious programs in this family can stealthily change bookmarks and the home page.
Third place in the ranking was taken by the FakeInst family, whose members pretend to be installers for popular programs (17 percent). These two types of malware are mostly distributed via so-called alternative app stores created by cybercriminals.
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