Mobile Malware Falls in U.S. But Climbs Globally
NQ Mobile’s 2013 midyear security report shows that 51,000 new mobile malware threats were identified in the first half of 2013, infecting an estimated 21 million mobile devices.
The top five most infected markets in 2013 along with their respective share of the world’s mobile infected devices were China (31.71 percent), Russia (17.15 percent), India (10.38 percent), USA (6.53 percent) and Thailand (6.04 percent).
Although the U.S. is still among the top five biggest territories for malware infection, the number of domestic mobile phones infected with malware actually decreased 63 percent between the first and second quarters of 2013.
India saw the most dramatic reductions in total malware infections with an 88 decreases from 1Q to 2Q.
Once again, China continued to be the leading market for infected mobile devices with over 6.7 million infected devices. That’s a 43 percent increase from 1Q to 2Q 2013.
The top three methods for delivering malware in 2013 continue to be app repackaging, malicious URLs, and smishing (This type of fraud uses SMS to increase the user’s bill, to the profit of malware developers).
“Our midyear report shows that although we discovered 51,000 new mobile malware threats, infection rates continue be very unpredictable and highly localized,” explains Omar Khan, Co-CEO of NQ Mobile. “And as evidenced by the Bill Shocker[iv] malware we discovered in January which infected over 600,000 mobile devices, it takes just one successful piece of malware to create a local malware epidemic.”
To review the full report from NQ mobile, click here.
