Nokia: Android continues to be the main target for Malware

Nokia’s cyber security unit posted a new Threat Intelligence Report for 2017, where the company analyzed more than 100 million devices using the NetGuard Security Management Center software, that Nokia uses to protect the mobile and fixed networks of their customers.

Nokia concludes that in 2017, ransomware software stepped up its game with the like of WannaCry and NotPetya that caused massive infections around the world. In mobile, Android platform did see a decrease in share of mobile infections from 74% of all mobile devices infected with mobile malware in 2016, to 68% in 2017. Nokia says this improvement is primarily because of Google’s Google Play Protect system that helps protect the device and find malicious applications available in the Google Play Store. A huge problem remain 3rd party stores and side-loading of apps.

For example, in the world’s biggest smartphone market, China, 96% of apps are downloaded via 3rd party stores, and such stores need to increase their security to better find malware hidden inside available apps. Nokia also noticed that some apps could unintentionally start DDOS-like attacks on operator’s network. In 40 seconds, a device doubled the load of an operator’s network causing performance issues, all because of a software glitch caused during a software update of the device. Nokia’s software helps operators find and deal with such Accidental DDoS attacks, brags Nokia in the report.

You can find other interesting facts in Nokia’s Threat Intelligence Report for 2017 signing up for the report here. If you don’t want to sign up, you can directly download the report (PDF) by clicking here.