Android accounts for 79% of phone malware

jeff juwana

Moderator
According to the US authorities, 79% of malicious attack on mobiles in 2012 occurred on devices running on Google’s Android operating system. Nokia’s Symbian system had the second-most malware attacks while Apple iOS had 0.7% of attacks.

Android is the world's most popular mobile operating system, and the memo blamed its high share of attacks on its "market share and open-source architecture".

Text trojans - malware that sends SMS messages to premium-rate numbers without the phone owners' knowledge - accounted for half of the Android attacks on old versions of the system.

The memo also cited fake sites that appeared to be like Google's Play marketplace and "rootkits" that allowed hackers to track a user's keystrokes and passwords. It said 44% of Android users were still using older versions of the operating system.

Apple has said that more than 93% of the 600 million iPhones and iPads sold run iOS 6, the latest version of the operating system.

The next version is expected to be released to the public next month.

This is the not the first time the open nature of Google's popular phone software has been questioned.

Security firm Symantec noted last month that a "master key" bug - which allows attackers to take control of Android phones - was being exploited in China.

The bug exploited vulnerability in all Android apps, which contain an encrypted signature that the operating system uses to check the program is legitimate and has not been tampered with.

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Incidentally, I wrote a piece about the masterkey bug. I found it immensely disappointing - on the part of Google - that they launched a device that had such a porous back-end.

The master key bug is such that even the most basic of malicious software can gain access to your Android device. It's sickening. But then of course, this doesn't come as a surprise now, does it? I mean, it is an open source Operating System. There's got to be a difference from something Apple is spending extensively to maintain as a high-end OS only the financially endowed can afford.

Google should review the Android OS, and quickly too.
 
@The_HeadCase , yeah- Google should equally spend as much to protect the Android OS.

In my opinion, apple doesn't just spend the money, they identify the loop holes in other devices and make the most of it.

I am patiently waiting for the SmartWatch episode. With Samsung set to unveil the device this year, I bet Apple would scrutinize the device for loopholes before unveiling theirs next year.
 
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