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July 2013: 10% of home users and 0.5% of mobile users are infected

As per the second quarter of 2013, 10% of home users that use wide network broadband and more than

0.5% of mobile devices connected to cellular networks are found infected with malware that allow

hackers to break into the devices for industrial espionage or personal information theft, large scale of

spam attacks, creating a denial of service attack (DOS) and deceptions of financial institutions.

Most of the threats that were found are associated with Spyware software, aimed at extracting

information from the infected device, which poses a significant threat to business and governmental

organizations that encourage the trend of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) and allow their employees to

integrate their personal mobile device in the organizational network. A large part of these threats are

not recognized by most anti-viruses.

More findings are, 6% of home user networks contain a high level threats such as bots, rootkits and

Trojans. 5% contain a more moderate threats, such as spyware, adware or browser hijacking.

The most popular malware is the ZeroAccess botnet, which owns 0.8% of the devices connected to wide

broadband networks. This threat uses rootkit technology to disguise itself from disclosure, and may

download additional malware advertising scams that are recorded as "clicks" on many of the

advertisement windows, in order to generate revenues to the advertising networks and the hackers

themselves.

Most infected mobile devices are Android phones and computers running the Windows OS connected

through mobile phone network (tethering), or cellular modem accessory for mobile connection (such as

MiFi).

An attempt to prevent malware combination in the Android applications stores, Google has integrated

a mechanism that should indicate whether an application is "kosher" using a special signature. Although

the operating system checks the application when installing, it does not try to determine whether the

signature is legitimate, and even authorizes old signatures. This allows hackers to put all kind of

threats under a signature, including Trojans hiding inside common software versions.

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In addition, the signature is checked only when you install the software, but not every time the

program is executed from the device. We have previously documented cases where APK files (that are

running the application) have been changed and injected with a malicious code, after they have

already been installed, without the operating system warning the user about it.

About TotalDefense:

Total Defense(@Total_Defense) is a global leader in malware detection and anti-crimeware solutions. We offer a broad portfolio of leading security products for the consumer market used by over four million consumers worldwide. Our solutions also include the industry’s first complete cloud security platform, providing fully integrated endpoint, web and email security through a single Web-based management console with a single set of enforceable security policies

Total Defense is a former business of CA Technologies, one of the largest software companies in the world, and has operations in New York, California, Europe, Israel and Asia.

Visit http://www.totaldefense.com/ for web, cloud & mobile security solutions for home users and businesses.