TechieNews | Cisco: 99% of all mobile malware in 2013 targeted Android

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Android malware days are far away from over as Cisco claims in its 2014 latest Annual Security Report that 99 percent of all mobile malware targeted Android devices last year.

 

Android malware was followed by Trojans targeting Java Micro Edition (J2ME) capable handsets with 0.84 percent share – meaning that iOS and Windows Phone mobile platforms may breathe a sigh of relief for almost non-existent platform specific malware.

 

Platforms specific malware may be negligible for other platforms; however, there were general form of attacks that were encountered by users of almost all mobile platforms including iOS and Windows Phone including phishing, likejacking, and other social engineering attacks.

 

“An analysis of user agents by Cisco TRAC/SIO reveals that Android users, at 71 percent, have the highest encounter rates with all forms of web-delivered malware, followed by Apple iPhone users with 14 percent of all web malware encounters”, notes Cisco in its report.

 

Cisco researchers also noted that there were instances wherein they observed that compromised Android devices were used for monetisation purpose “including launches of adware and small and medium-size enterprise (SME)-related spyware.”