Juniper Networks, one of the leading firms network innovation sector have a special research facility called as Juniper Networks Mobile Threat Center (MTC) which is dedicated to mobile security and privacy research. The company released their third annual Mobile Threats Report on 26th June 2013 according to which mobile threats are growing at an alarming rate of 614 percent.
Some of the important coverage of the MTC report this year was:
- Preying on High-Growth Market Opportunities: Malware for the Android OS increased from 24 percent (2010) of all mobile malware to 92 percent (2013).
- More Effective Distribution: MTC identified more than 500 third party Android application stores globally most of which are known to host malware content and has very low accountability.
- Multiple Paths to Big Profits: Around 73 percent of all known malware are either FakeInstallers or SMS Trojans. These malware trick people into sending SMS to premium rate numbers setup by hackers for quick & easy profit. each successful attack can cost the user upto $10.
- Exploiting Industry Fragmentation: Only 4 percent of Android phone users are using the latest version of the OS. Older Android versions are more vulnerable to malware threats.
- Increasing Privacy Violations: Juniper Networks has found that even the legitimate free applications pose a risk of leaking corporate data. According to the company free apps track your location and access user address books upto times more than their paid counterparts.
This MTC report has been released after analyzing more than 1.85 million mobile applications and vulnerabilities. It is one of the largest first-hand quantitative research studies around.
