Mobile devices are now more popular than ever, but their owners still underestimate the risks they may encounter. According research of Kaspersky Lab and B2B International, 28% of users know nothing or little about it mobile devices malware. And this ignorance becomes "play" in the hands of digital criminals.
Τα στοιχεία της έρευνας για την Ευρώπη δείχνουν ότι μόνο το 47% των Android smartphone και το 61% των Android tablet προστατεύονται από μία λύση antivirus. Στο σύνολο μάλιστα των συσκευών (ανεξαρτήτως λειτουργικού συστήματος), το 26% των smartphone και το 43% των tablet δεν προστατεύονται καν με κωδικό accesss. Risky user behavior may result from the fact that 27% of Europeans are unaware of the existence of digital threats targeting mobile devices and 26% of respondents said they know about them but are not concerned.
Even worse is the fact that 18% of unprotected Android smartphones contain exactly what information the attackers want to find, ie PIN codes for bank cards, passwords for electronic banking systems and other financial data. 24% stores passwords on social networks, personal and business email, VPN networks, and other sensitive resources. Even if users do not deal with password setting to stop unauthorized access to their devices, they still store their personal email (49%), business email (18%) and 'data that will not wanted to see "(10%).
According to the survey, users of Android devices face threats more often than users of Windows devices*. Also, the latter seem to know more about mobile threats and tend to protect their devices in 9 out of 10 cases. Thus, the survey found that over a 12-month period, 41% of Android smartphone users and 36% of Android tablet users encountered malicious apps. Accordingly, the online service accounts of 18% of Android smartphone users and 24% of Android tablet users were compromised, while financial digital attacks affected 43% of smartphone users and 50% of tablet users with this operating system. Overall, the corresponding percentages for all mobile devices (regardless of operating system) averaged 31% (malware), 14% (breach of online services accounts) and 43% (financial digital attacks). These sizes are significantly lower than the sizes for Android devices only.
"It's no surprise that mobile device users are often confronted online threats. Devices are now able to perform many more tasks and many more people use them. Thus, it is natural to attract scammers as well. To avoid falling victim to fraud, users should protect their devices against digital threats and be especially careful with the sensitive data they store in them, "said Victor Yablokov, Head of Mobile Product Line Kaspersky Lab.
The Kaspersky Internet Security for Android protects Android devices from known and new mobile threats. In addition to anti-malware and anti-phishing protection, it includes "Anti-Theft" and "Privacy Protection" technologies. The solution does not significantly affect your operating system performance or battery life.
In order to fill the knowledge gap that is experienced by users, Kaspersky Lab has created one video on the evolution of mobile risks. More information, including data on mobile threats, different types of threats and "infection" methods are available in report "The Enemy on Your Phone," at Kaspersky Lab's Securelist.com.
*Hereinafter, it will refer to the users who marked a device, which works on a given platform, as their primary device for accessing the Internet. As there is the possibility of using different devices, different platforms at the same time, users may face the threats mentioned in the text on any of them.
