In a joint effort to combat cybercrime, a year-long study conducted by Kaspersky and INTERPOL revealed that SMS Trojans are among the most common Android threats.
The Android operating system is used in most mobile phones on the market, so it is not surprising that most attacks target its users. According to Kaspersky, attacks targeting Android devices account for 98% of all attacks. This data was collected between August 1, 2013 and July 31, 2014, using antivirus software installed on customers' devices.
More than a million users received malware in a year
Information from Kaspersky’s system showed that the most widespread form of attack is SMS Trojans, accounting for 57.08% of all attacks. SMS Trojans are designed to use the short messaging service to send SMS to premium-rate numbers. The company found that cybercriminals used 62 types of Trojans in 452 variants. The popularity of this type of threat is associated with specific regions where SMS payments are popular. Most attacks were recorded in Russia, but many incidents were also recorded in countries such as Kazakhstan, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, India, France, etc.
Big increase in banking Trojans
There has been a significant increase in attacks with banking Trojans targeting bank accounts. During the period under review, 67,500 attacks were recorded on 37,700 users. In August 2013, there were 423 attacks, while in July 2014, there were 5,967 – up to 14 times more attacks in one year. The conclusion of the Interpol and Kaspersky report is that cybercrime targeting mobile devices has started to increase in the last year and is affecting users all over the globe. Criminals are not limited by their country’s borders and are launching attacks in any region of the world.
