{"id":4770,"date":"2014-05-12T10:00:51","date_gmt":"2014-05-12T14:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com.au\/blog\/?p=4770"},"modified":"2020-02-27T03:42:38","modified_gmt":"2020-02-26T16:42:38","slug":"android-malware","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com.au\/blog\/android-malware\/4770\/","title":{"rendered":"Android’s Growing Malware Problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

Android devices are increasingly dominating global market share but are also increasingly plagued by malware issues. It\u2019s been a particularly tough year, so far, for the reputation of Google Play, the app store for Android-based devices. In February, security company RiskIQ reported<\/a> the number of apps in the Google Play store had quadrupled from 2011 to 2013. Then, in April, a fake Android antivirus app was downloaded<\/a> by so many users that Google announced<\/a> it would refund the 10,000-plus buyers who ponied up $3.99 for the app \u2013 which, thankfully, was no worse than useless, since it was no more than an icon that changed shape when tapped.<\/p>\n

Android continues to increase its dominance of the U.S. and international smartphone and tablet markets, with Google\u2019s platform holding 52 percent of the U.S. smartphone market, to Apple\u2019s 41 percent, according to ComScore<\/a>, and that gap widens substantially on the global market \u2013 where Android owned 44 percent of the 2014 Q1 market share, to Apple\u2019s 10 percent. What\u2019s more, Android devices make up 62 percent of the U.S. tablet market<\/a>, to iOS\u2019s 36 percent.<\/p>\n

But while Android\u2019s market figures continue to pile up, so do the knocks against the company\u2019s security protocols. In addition to the security troubles with the Google-authorized apps for sale in the app store, cybersecurity firm Opswat reported<\/a> last month that nearly a third of the apps available for sale on third-party app stores contain malware. That prompted Google to enhance the Verify Apps security feature<\/a> on Android devices, which will now locally scan third-party apps on all user devices \u2013 as long as users don\u2019t opt out, which they are allowed to do. Oh, and for those to whom this is relevant, there\u2019s also a nasty piece of Android ransomware<\/a> siphoning lots of money from international porn users.<\/p>\n

But while Android\u2019s market figures continue to pile up, so do the knocks against the company\u2019s security protocols.<\/div>\n

The bottom line is that Android users need to be extremely cautious in how they download apps. It is best not to trust third-party apps, and whatever apps users do download should be scanned locally with the Verify Apps utility. But beyond that, Android users should be running a mobile security suite on their devices. There are plenty on the market for users to choose from \u2013 and of course Kaspersky Lab is happy to recommend one<\/a> to users \u2013 but given the escalating number and severity of malware in apps and supposed antivirus systems, users shouldn\u2019t be running Android devices without one of these mobile device security suites.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

But while Android\u2019s market figures continue to pile up, so do the knocks against the company\u2019s security protocols.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":4771,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2646],"tags":[105,1250,218,44,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-4770","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-threats","9":"tag-android","10":"tag-ios","11":"tag-mobile-security","12":"tag-smartphone","13":"tag-tablet"},"hreflang":[{"hreflang":"en-au","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com.au\/blog\/android-malware\/4770\/"},{"hreflang":"en-in","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/android-malware\/3450\/"},{"hreflang":"en-ae","url":"https:\/\/me-en.kaspersky.com\/blog\/android-malware\/3335\/"},{"hreflang":"en-us","url":"https:\/\/usa.kaspersky.com\/blog\/android-malware\/3761\/"},{"hreflang":"en-gb","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/android-malware\/3870\/"},{"hreflang":"ru","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.ru\/blog\/android-malware\/3986\/"},{"hreflang":"x-default","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/android-malware\/4770\/"},{"hreflang":"ja","url":"https:\/\/blog.kaspersky.co.jp\/android-malware\/3617\/"},{"hreflang":"ru-kz","url":"https:\/\/blog.kaspersky.kz\/android-malware\/3986\/"},{"hreflang":"en-za","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.za\/blog\/android-malware\/4770\/"}],"acf":[],"banners":"","maintag":{"url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com.au\/blog\/tag\/android\/","name":"Android"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4770"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26318,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4770\/revisions\/26318"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}