GeneralIndia 4th-most affected country by mobile malware, claims F-Secure

India 4th-most affected country by mobile malware, claims F-Secure

India stands fourth in the lineup of countries most affected by mobile malware, says a new F-Secure study which notes that this obviously means the nation is a favorite amongst cyber criminals. The security solutions provider puts the UK, France and Saudi Arabia in the list of places suffering the most from such attacks based on the number of reported incidents.

Since India is the fastest growing mobile phone market in the world and a vast portion of the population is en route to migrating to Internet-capable devices, it presents big opportunities for mischief makers, of course. In April to June 2014, 295 new threat families and variants were dug up. 294 of these were on Android and 1 was on iOS, according to F-Secure Lab’s Threat Report H1 2014.

To put things into perspective, 277 malware threats were detected in January to March 2014, with 275 of them aimed solely at Google’s Android OS. Bangalore, Chandigarh, Chennai, Hyderabad and New Delhi figure among the top five infected cities. What’s more, tier II metropolitan areas are fast becoming the favorite destinations of cyber criminals messing around with mobile malware.

Man With Phone

Ransomware which enters a mobile and restricts access to the gadget until the user pays a certain sum of money to the maker of the malware, will be the next wave of attack on phones. While this type of malicious program was initially sent out to target individuals, it is increasingly being deployed in the direction of enterprises or businesses too.

Also see: Cyber criminals are using Ebola virus scare as bait to infect PCs

Back in June, a Slocker malware disguised as a legitimate application made the record as the first ransomware on the mobile platform, says The Economic Times. The foremost Android threats in the second quarter of this year consisted of Trojans built to grab data from a device and stream it to a remote server or to send text messages to premium numbers.

Even though F-Secure paints a bleak picture of the penetration of mobile malware in India, the situation will only get worse as more and more people start using connected devices.

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