We always love a good study at Android Headlines and it is that time of year for Trend Micro to release their findings for the end of the 2Q 2015 with regards to the trends in security – the type of malware, adware, DoS Attacks and so on. Things that were long ago reserved for screenwriters and played out in a movie theater are now happening on a daily basis in the real world. Attacks on commercial airlines, hijacking home routers and shutting down a TV network’s broadcast are all happening today, for real.
Cybercriminals are no longer content with stealing our identities or money and are looking to the corporate world where the rate of return can be much greater. Advancements in point-of-sales (PoS) malware have allowed hackers to steal credit cards and other personal information the system might store on their customers. The sky is literally the limit now with hackers going after the air traffic controller’s software and just wait until smart vehicles come out and that will open up our car’s computer to hackers.
The 46-page report has too much to go into, but we will look at a few of the highlights – please remember that these stats are as of the end of the 2Q 2015. The first chart in the gallery looks at the Top Android Malware Families headed by the dreaded Guidead with 24-percent, followed by Sysservice and Sptvt, both at 10-percent. The Guidead variants just run silently in the background with no GUIs or icons of any sort.
The second graphic shows the countries with the highest number of macro malware detections with China leading the category with 23-percent, followed by the US at 19-percent. Rounding out the top five are the UK with 9-percent, followed closely by Japan with 8-percent and in fifth is France at 5-percent. The top four remained unchanged from the first quarter of 2015. This next graph was somewhat of a shock – it shows the amount of macro malware distribution by application and Microsoft Word came in at 85-percent! This was followed by Microsoft Excel at 12-percent and Microsoft PowerPoint at 3-percent.
The next slide shows the top ten online banking malware families – Ramnit shows up with 35-percent, Dorkbot and Zbot weigh in at 13-percent, Emotet comes in at 10-percent and in fifth is Dyre at 7-percent. However, you can see how much they change from quarter to quarter, never staying the same.
The next slide shows DNS changer detections for the first and second quarters. As you can see, the percentage for Brazil jumped from only 14-percent to a whopping 81-percent. Meanwhile, the US dropped from 17-percent to only 2-percent and the same thing happened with Spain – 29-percent to 1-percent.
The next slide shows the Top Android Threat Types – 50-percent come from Potentially Unwanted Apps (PUAs) that slip in with downloads of other apps. Adware is second at 27-percent and Trojans are at 22-percent. Riskware, are apps that have potential to be used for malicious purpose, come in at 11-percent. The next slide shows us the Top Android Adware Families with the top three – Adleak at 13-percent, Arpush at 8-percent and Agent at 7-percent.
The next slide shows how the number of ransomware detections have changed from 1Q 2014 – 2Q 2015. The next slide shows the number of PoS malware detections during the same time period. The last slide is quite fascinating – it shows a snapshot of product and services found in the Deep Web and how much they cost to purchase. For instance, a US credit card with a US$2,000 balance will cost you US$90.
As long as there is software, it will be vulnerable to hackers – cybercriminals are constantly updating their malware code, as the fastest way to launch an attack. As you can see from the charts, no country is without their attacks. As we become more reliant on wireless and computer technology – cars, airplanes, running our home security, hospitals, colleges and even appliances – the existence of cybercriminals and what they can do and how we can stop them becomes even more important.
