ESET has observed an increase in attacks on Android, a fact highlighted during its participation in the GSMA Mobile World Congress 2014.
As the Android platform continues to dominate the smartphone market, accounting for 81% of all mobile devices sold worldwide, ESET’s “Trends for 2014: The Challenge of Internet Privacy” report reflects this trend in the increasing number of attacks on the platform. Notably, while in 2010 ESET had discovered three malware families, in 2013 this number reached 79 families, a 26-fold increase.
Last year, ESET researchers identified new threats previously known for attacking Windows and other platforms that were not related to mobile devices, such as the Dropper Trojan, the Clicker Trojan, and the Bank Trojan. In 2013, ESET presented the report “Hesperbot: A New, Advanced Banking Trojan in the Wild” about the Hesperbot trojan, which attacked users in several European countries.
Part of this malware scheme was implemented on mobile platforms for Android, Symbian, and Blackberry OS, bypassing two-factor authentication used to log in to internet banking services.
In 2013, some of the Android threats exploited weaknesses in the operating system itself. The most well-known vulnerability of all is probably the “Master Key” discovered by Bluebox lab, which allows attackers to develop malicious codes that steal information, turn devices into “zombies” and present them as genuine applications. Recently, researchers at Ben Gurion University in Israel discovered a vulnerability in the latest Android OS software update – 4.4 KitKat, which allows attackers to intercept and divert traffic on secure virtual private networks.
Source: secnews.gr
