Mobile security threats fall in U.S. despite global growth

mobile devices security threats

A midyear report has indicated that the American trend is moving in a different direction than the rest of the world.

According to the most recent mobile security report issued by NQ Mobile, there were 51,000 new malware threats that were identified in the first two quarters of this year, which have caused infections within an estimated 21 million different devices worldwide.

The data analysis performed by the company went on to identify the trends among various markets.

What it indicated was that the top five markets in the world, including their most infected devices were pointed out by this study. The leading five markets for mobile security threats were China (at 31.71 percent), Russia (at 17.15 percent), India (at 10.38 percent), the United States (at 6.53 percent) and Thailand (at 6.04 percent).

mobile security threatsWhat was interesting about this mobile security analysis was the way that the United States stood out.

While the United States did find itself positioned among the top five most malware infected markets, there was a difference in the mobile security threat trend there when compared to the other leading infected markets. The reason that it was different is that the number of domestic smartphones and tablets that were actually infected with malware fell by a tremendous 63 percent from the first to the second quarter of this year.

India also experienced a trend of falling mobile security infections from malware, having dropped by 88 percent from the first to the second quarter of 2013. However, China – the market in which there is currently the largest number of smartphones and tablets – was also the leader in infections, with an estimated 6.7 million infections by midway through the year. This represented a massive increase of 43 percent from the first to the second quarter of the year.

The report indicated that the top three most common means of mobile security infection this year continues to be the repackaging of apps, smishing (a fraudulent method of using SMS to raise the wireless bill of a smartphone user, with the additional funds being paid to the developer of the malware), and malicious URLs.

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