Nigerians plagued by mobile malware

Nigerians rank third on the global list of those victimized by mobile malware. According to Kaspersky Lab's Q3 report, 16% Nigerian smartphone users have fallen prey to hidden malicious mobile software. The report pulls information from millions of Kaspersky Lab product users in 213 countries.

Exposing users to malvertising is a hackers' preferred means of capitalizing on mobile threats. The number of programs displaying intrusive adware on mobile devices continued to grow from July through to September, accounting for more than half of all detected mobile objects. Some viruses generate profit for their creators as adware by rooting the device and embedding the malicious software onto the users smartphone.

SMS Trojan programs remain popular in Russia but their relative success could see them adopted in other localities. They work by sending paid messages from the victims phone to without the owner's knowledge. Spy Trojans that intercept SMS communication are also relatively popular.

The prevalence of mobile banking Trojans has steadily increased over the past year, it is likely that their usage will continue on an upwards trajectory as criminals look to profit from a global shift towards greater banking and retail activity on mobile devices.

While accounting for just 5% of registered occurrences, Kaspersky's report drew special attention to the increase in Adobe Flash based viruses, in addition to noting a fall in the number of Java exploits that still account for more than double the Flash based attacks. The survey was predictable in reporting that Android and browsers such as Internet Explorer are especially prone to malware attacks. Their prevalence makes both highly lucrative for cyber-criminals.

The top ten operating systems identified as most prone to banker Trojan malware were all versions of Windows, with the Windows 7 x64 edition topping the list. Whilst Mac OS X sits outside of the top ten most vulnerable there were 12,492 registered attacks on the Apple operating system. Likewise, iOS has seen an increase in the number of threats of late.

Most recently iOS' version of WeChat, NetEase’s music download app, business card scanner CamCard, Didi Kuadi’s car-hailing app and the Chinese versions of Angry Birds 2 have all been infected by the malware known as 'Xcodeghost'. Attackers uploaded a compromised version of Xcode, the software developer toolkit used to create programs for iOS, this lead to the manifestation of a rash of infected apps. Unofficial third parties, such as Github, have played unwitting host to the malware which has created an avenue to spread the data stealing virus which reports confidential information to the attackers.

Current trends in malware creation and utilization should awaken all readers to the growing threat of mobile malware, there has been a 10.8% increase in just three months. Kaspersky was able to uncover 5.6 million cases of attempted theft from online bank accounts and over 145 million unique types of malware. Intelligent smartphone etiquette has never been so important.