05 Mar 2019

Kaspersky Lab: Mobile malware attacks doubled in 2018

Kaspersky Lab researcher saw a near-doubling in the number of attacks using malicious mobile software, from 66.4 million in 2017 to 116.5 million in 2018. While more devices are being attacked, the number of malware files has dropped and researchers conclude that this indicates that mobile malware has become more impactful and precise.

The number of unique users that have encountered malware also rose in 2018, increasing by 774,000 on the previous year to reach 9,895,774 affected users. The most significant growth was in the use of Trojan-Droppers, whose share almost doubled from 8.63% per cent to 17.21 per cent. This type of malware is designed to bypass system protection and deliver there all sorts of malware, from banking Trojans to ransomware. These details have been published in Kaspersky Lab’s Mobile malware evolution report 2018.

The report also reported an observed fivefold increase in attacks using mobile malicious crypto currency miners and that n 2018, 151,359 installation packages for mobile banking Trojans were detected – 1.6 times more than in the previous year.

To protect your devices, Kaspersky Lab security experts advise the following:

“In 2018, mobile device users faced what could have been the fiercest cybercriminal onslaught ever seen. Over the course of the year, we observed both new mobile device infection techniques, such as DNS hijacking, along with an increased focus on enhanced distribution schemes, like SMS spam. This trend demonstrates the growing need for mobile security solutions to be installed on smartphones – to protect users from device infection attempts, regardless of the source,” said Viсtor Chebyshev, security expert at Kaspersky Lab.