Android malware has tripled

Windows users are well accustomed to the dangers of malware, given that much of it is targeted squarely at their good selves.

But increasingly the Mac is getting more popular and becoming a target, and also in the mobile world, Google’s massively selling Android OS is turning many a malware author’s head.

More recently, we’ve been hearing a lot about the dangers of Android, and a new report underlines the spread of malware to the robotic mobile platform.

The latest figures from Kaspersky Labs show that in the second quarter of this year, malware levels no less than tripled on Android. Nasty.

Almost half of that Android malware – 49 per cent of it to be precise – came in the form of multi-functional Trojans that steal data such as contact details, emails, phone numbers and so forth. Furthermore, the malware author can use these to download additional nastiness onto your phone.

A quarter of the threats Kaspersky picked up on were SMS Trojans, which stealthily send texts to premium rate numbers in order to fleece the unsuspecting phone owner. The security firm noted that just two years ago, these sort of trojans were only found in China and countries formerly part of the USSR. Now they’ve spread to 47 countries.

18 per cent of threats were backdoors, used to give the author control over a user’s device. Finally, Trojan Spy programs represent 2 per cent of malware, fortunately a low figure as these nasty pieces of work hunt for data to gain access to online bank accounts. Their numbers will doubtless grow, though.

Meantime, if you’re an Android phone owner and you don’t think much about the security of your handset, it’s high time you did so.