McAfee: Malware surging on mobile platforms

Mobile platforms are certainly not safe from malware, based on the second quarter Threats Report from McAfee.

Android, in particular, has beenfound to be the manyvulnerable mobile operating system on the market, as malware targeted towards Google’s OS has skyrocketed 76 percent becausethe previous quarter. That’s a verysobering statistic for both Android developers and device owners.

McAfee went so far asto call Android the “most attacked mobile operating system,” surpassing Symbian OS as the most populartarget. Still, Symbian OS and Java ME remain the mostspecific fordate.

Due to therapid escalation, McAfee has dubbed this caseas a “Malware Zoo,” as McAfee researchers predict that the the grand total of total malware samples will reach atminimum75 million from theend of 2011. The totalcurrently stands at approximately 65 million.

Vincent Weafer, senior v . p .of McAfee Labs, explained inside arelease:

This year we’ve seen record breaking amounts ofmalware, especially on mobile devices, where the uptick is in direct correlationto popularity. Overall attacks are becoming more stealth and more sophisticated, suggesting that we could see attacks that remain unnoticed for longer periods of time. High-profile hacktivist groups have also changed the landscape by drawing a line between attacks for personalgain and attacks meant to send a message.

McAfee warned that malware, particularly for Android, could seemin “everything fromcalendar apps, to comedy apps to SMS messages to a fake Angry Birds updates.”

Other highlights from the study:

• Apple has grow to bemore of a target for malware authors as more Mac OS X computers are being affected by fake anti-virus software

• Stealth malware has highermore rapidly in the last six months than in any previous period with an increase of nearly 38 percent than the same time last year

• Hacktivists, primarily Anonymous and LulzSec, were among some of the most prominent cyber news generators for Q2

• At least20 global attacks were reported in Q2 alone, and with the majority allegedly stemming from LulzSec

On the bright side, spam is being issued at historically smalllevels.