Infected Mobile apps skyrocket 614 Percent

Juniper’s has released a article explaining that Mobile Threats Report analyzed 1.85 million mobile apps, up a third from February 2012, to find malware and vulnerabilities. According to the article mobile malware is skyrocketing in total, it’s up 614 percent in a single year across all platforms — but Juniper alleges that Android is where the actual challenges lie.

A Astonishing 267,259 mobile apps are sparking SMS malware, exploiting security holes, stealing private information, and building botnets, ninety-two percent of them are Android-based, and most of those are due to over 500 Android app stores globally that are known to be hosting mobile malware.

We anticipate that similar to the evolution of PC-based threats, mobile attacks will continue to increase and become more sophisticated in the coming years,” Juniper mobile threat manager Troy Vennon stated.

Juniper says that 73 percent of all recognized malware are FakeInstallers or SMS Trojans. These apps appear legitimate and from known sources, but they have in reality been cracked and backdoored.

Google Play is currently one of the safest sources to get Android apps, other credible app stores such as Amazon’s would also be safe. The problem is the 500-plus unknown stores that are allowing malware to thrive.