Trojan attacks among almost 75m forms of mobile viruses.
Security provider McAfee's Threats Report for Q3 2011 found almost 75 million samples of malware are in circulation, beating previous estimates of 70 million.
And they're encroaching into mobile now that open source platforms are dominating the market.
Thus, Android is the OS that's under the most threat with a 37 per cent growth of mobile malware in the third quarter of 2011, according to the report.
Vincent Weafer, senior VP of McAfee Labs, said: "This has been a very steady quarter in terms of threats, as both general and mobile malware are more prevalent than ever.
"So far this year, we’ve seen many interesting yet challenging trends that are affecting the threat landscape, including heightened levels of sophistication and high-profile hacktivist attacks."
Article continues belowAdvertisement
Prominent viruses include a Trojan that operates through SMS to send out and steal personal information and steal funds. Another form of malware records phone conversations again with the aim of stealing personal details.
The report says shared hacking collective Anonymous is the main source of the 'hacktivist' attacks.
Last month we reported that 81 per cent of mobile phone owners don't have antivirus protection on their devices.
Add a new comment
You need to be logged in to post comments. If you do not have an account then please register.
Comments
0 comments
There are no comments yet, be the first to add one!