Quick Heal released its Quarterly Threat Report (January-March, 2014) for Windows & Android, identifying top security threats, upcoming trends and recommendations to address the expanding threat landscape in these platforms.
The first quarter of 2014 was quite eventful and witnessed bugs like Heart bleed victimizing open SSL technology in Windows, Android users faced social engineering tricks and fake viruses. The Quick Heal quarterly threat report covers these events along with details on other security threats and outlines recommendation to minimize risks and overall impact of attacks.
The Key Findings of Quick Heal Quarterly Threat Report (January-March, 2014) for Android are 80% of the smart phone users adopt Android as their mobile platform. The massive rise in Android phone, tablet users and the unregulated nature of Android application markets, has led to an exponential growth in the numbers of malware.
Total Android malware detected by Quick Heal was over 4 lakhs, Android adware consisted of almost 89% detections. Android adware finds its way into smartphones through the myriad free applications that users install. A large portion of these applications come from unauthorized third-party sources which are unregulated and unmonitored. Such adware proves to be extremely dangerous as it steals confidential data and often goes undetected by the users.
Upcoming trend for Android malware indicated, high social network usage that can lure many fake applications into extracting personal details and stealing money of users. Adware stayed dominant with no sign of abating. Programs that lock a device and demand the payment of money to unlock the device will be found more frequently over the coming quarter.
The Key Findings of Quick Heal Quarterly Threat Report (January-March, 2014) for Windows are Malicious software detections went up by approximately 20% since December 2013.
This quarter, over 10 million malware detected for windows, Adware accounted 25% malware detection. For the users of Windows, dominant security breach over the last quarter was ‘Heartbleed’, which found its way through the open SSL technology. As a result, a large number of passwords were exposed and dangerously, about 50% of these passwords are yet unchanged.
The Upcoming trends for Windows malware indicates that in the absence of windows XP support, more blatant attacks will be seen. The economic viability of Ransomeware will probe malware developers to design even craftier malware. Cloud-based computing is another open ground for the attackers in the coming quarter.
“Our Research and Development team is observing steady growth in threat patterns, even the old practices are evolving and becoming much more rigorous and sophisticated. The prime objective of these cybercriminals is data theft, they manipulate this data in multiple ways for personnel gains. It is crucial to understand that every piece of data can be monetized and secure the open avenues like social media, personal accounts and contacts”, said Sanjay Katkar, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Quick Heal Technologies.
