Mobiles susceptible to malware: Report

The report states that there is a potential rise in malware hitting hand-held devices especially in case of android phones, which could break in and take contact details and even compromise personal data on the device.

Amit Nath, country manager for F-Secure says, “With governments calling for wi-fi in public places in various cities, we thought of analysing the Internet trends in India.”

The state of Internet in India report was carried out in tier-1 cities, looking into the present trends online. Mumbai, Delhi, Chandigarh, Chennai and Hyderabad have emerged as the top mobile-infected cities in 2014 in the report.

Sality, Ramnit, Trogan.LNK.Gen, Trogan.Script and Virtob are the top five malicious family detections. Among cities, Delhi is said to be the most affected. Delhi (20 per cent), Hyderabad (9 per cent), Chennai (9 per cent) and Chandigarh (7 per cent) were the top malicious cities in 2014.

Amit says Chennai is an industrial hub with a growing younger crowd who are adopting online trends fast which is leading to its rise on the malware-infected chart.

On the mobile front, SMSes are still the top reason behind a high number of SMS-related malware in the android platform in India. Amit says with most of the people depending on mobile phones for bank transactions while on the move, it is important to keep it secure.

The mobile malwares are capable of collecting application ID, device manufacturer, device model, GPS location, equipment identity (IMEI) number, network operator, package name, etc.

Pekka Usva, vice president of corporate security, F-Secure, says, “Hackers manage to own your PCs and use them for spamming. The Ramnit malware steals bank user names and passwords and it mostly spreads through USB removable drives.” Amit says people need to protect their phones with a proper anti-virus and be cautious of SMS from unknown sources.