Malware engineered for Google Android rose most significantly, with a four-fold increase in the number of exploits identified throughout 2010, according to a survey of AdaptiveMobile subscribers and partners.
Smartphones running Java-based applications saw the second highest increase in malware reports, up 45% on 2009. Reported exploits aimed at iPhone declined, while Symbian malware also fell by 11%. WinCE-based viruses rose by 7%.
“With the increasing pervasiveness of smartphone devices, 2010 has undoubtedly been the year that fraudsters have truly turned their attention to mobile platforms”, said Gareth Maclachlan, chief operating officer of AdaptiveMobile. “The vast majority of consumers are acutely aware of the threats that PC-based viruses, spam messages and phishing emails pose, but many are still unaware of the risks associated with their mobile devices.”
Maclachlan predicted that the number of malware threats targeting smartphones would increase “at an exponential rate” next year and that the threat would become more sophisticated. “Whereas the majority of existing threats target either SMS, voice, email or web, the next year will see the emergence of the ‘compound threat’ – intelligent scams designed to exploit multiple phone capabilities in order to reap maximum reward for the criminals, before the user even realizes they have become a victim.”
The AdaptiveMobile chief operating officer concluded: “As these compound threats continue to emerge, so does the need for an intelligent approach to mobile security – keeping the industry one step ahead of the criminals to ensure that such threats do not reach mobile users in the first place.”