back to article 15 MEEELLION malware-infested mobiles worldwide – report

Incidences of malicious software (malware) being identified on mobile devices rose 17% in the first half of this year, according to a new study. A report by French communications giant Alcatel-Lucent estimated that approximately 15 million mobile devices worldwide could be infected with malware. The report said that the mobile …

  1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

    Enough with the Click-bait headlines please

    From the report itself

    60 percent of infected devices are Android .

    • 40 percent are Windows PCs connected to the mobile network .

    • Less than 1 percent of devices are iPhones, Blackberrys, Symbian and Windows Mobile .

    Clearly the Android platform is the biggest malware target in the mobile space, followed by Windows

    PCs, which are still the favorite of hard-core professional cybercriminals .

    Why would the people out the want to hide their iPads? Can we have an explanation please?

    disclaimer. I own a Kindle Fire HD but it is rarely connected to any network outside my home and when connected I would certainly not load any 'suspicious' applications or visit sites that I don't already use from say my PC. most if the time it is used as an e-boo kreader and running in flight mode.

    1. sabroni Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: Can we have an explanation please?

      I think it's an attempt to get people to post outraged comments....

  2. Semtex451
    Joke

    Remember by reading this piece you're helping to keep El Reg content free

  3. deadlockvictim
    Trollface

    That's crazy talk

    Subhead» Hide your iPads, folks

    *Everyone* knows that Apple products don't get viruses and tings because they are shiny and happy.

    You are just doing this to stir up trouble, aren't you?

  4. jake Silver badge

    Hey, Kevin McNamee, you claim:

    "Network based anti-virus embedded on an operator’s network cannot be disabled by cybercriminals, is always on and up to date.”

    Post proof, or retract.

    That has got to be the most idiotic statement I've read in ages.

    1. sabroni Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: That has got to be the most idiotic statement I've read in ages.

      Yeah, you never struck me as someone who hits "preview" before "submit".....

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hey, Kevin McNamee, you claim:

      Jake: "Post proof, or retract."

      OMG the irony

    3. DerekCurrie

      Re: Hey, Kevin McNamee, you claim:

      "Network based anti-virus embedded on an operator’s network cannot be disabled by cybercriminals, is always on and up to date.”

      The most famous case of this being totally wrong is that Target POS malware catastrophe of December 2013. The network anti-malware [the correct term, not 'anti-virus'] was in place, working, and found the infecting malware on two occasions. But human behavior within the corporation dictated doing nothing about it. Thus were 110 million customer accounts stolen. Big deal if you have the anti-malware installed and up-to-date. You have to RESPOND.

  5. David Roberts
    FAIL

    Track........

    Having problems with copy and paste with Dolphin, so can't post the text, but the malware seems to share the chatacteristics of nearly every Android app.

    Are we sure this isn't just people using Google as a search engine?

    Nope.

    Numbers would be much higher.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Shorter version of article

    "Buy our services", says Kevin McNamee, security architect and director of Alcatel-Lucent’s Kindsight Security Labs.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "Buy our services", says Kevin McNamee...

      Yeah, I see that. But at the same time I have to say that anti virus at the operator level does offer some extra cover beyond what's possible on device. Plus presumably the network could for example disable calls to malware servers, so there is possibly a product worth looking at here. Just 'cos salesmen try to sell something doesn't mean that thing is necessarily shit....

      And like the poster above says, I'm sure this kind of article helps keep el Reg running free!

      1. Robert Helpmann??
        Childcatcher

        Re: "Buy our services", says Kevin McNamee...

        The best defence against infection is network-based malware detection... People frequently don’t take appropriate security precautions for their devices, and even when they do a malicious app can easily evade detection by device-based anti-virus. Network based anti-virus embedded on an operator’s network cannot be disabled by cybercriminals, is always on and up to date.

        As pointed out above, there needs to be more going on than this. the approach advocated here is essentially "Trust us. You can put all of your eggs into our basket." This makes no sense from a security standpoint! The best approach varies by need and almost never involves a single product. Much better would have been to advocate for correctly configured anti-malware both on the network and on the hosts. At least as important is that the host OSes get patched regularly, which I understand is not the norm for Android phones.

        There are obviously other technical measures that should be addressed, but I think shifting the burden of security to the network owners, no matter how much it makes technical sense to do so, will inevitably succumb to corporate need for profits and not get done right. Too, unless a mobile provider builds a network from the ground up with security as the major consideration... well, it seems that the current state of affairs speaks to that quite well.

  7. Fullbeem

    My interpretation

    Seems a bit of finger in the air and guess work to me, along with some scare stories and buy our products messages

  8. Terry 6 Silver badge

    Infected?Or self-inflicted?

    I assume though that this includes the vast number of "apps" in the Google/Android appstore that take permissions to monitor phone calls etc. that are not in the slightest bit needed for the app to function. Confident in the knowledge that few of the users will even look, let alone refuse to install these juicy "apps". Many of which seem just to be bait to get you to put their spyware on the phone.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I really don't get why IT people are hellbent on mass deploying Android into the enterprise in its current state.

    We have circa 35,000 devices in the UK geography of our organisation. These are managed using enterprise MDM toolsets.

    Around 25k are Android, of which 75% have regular issues such as crashes, malware, inability to lock the devices down properly, failure to apply policy, inability to consistently snapshot settings etc

    Around 10k are IOS, of which 0.5% have regular issues, these are related to hardware failure and sync problems.

    1. James O'Shea

      I was, not too long ago, downvoted for mentioning that my Android device freezes repeatedly, and that this was not a problem with the particular device but was a design issue as I am currently on the third example and it still freezes repeatedly. Meanwhile my iPhone simply works. Which is why the Android will be replaced by an iPhone.

      If the iPhone had exhibited the problems that the Android does, while the Android was as reliable as the iPhone, I'd be replacing the iPhone with an Android. However, the simple fact that I have found Android to be far less reliable than iPhone seems to get up some people's noses and choke them.

      Note that I have never encountered malware or policy problems on my Android, no doubt because the damn thing can't continue to operate long enough for me to do anything which might get me in trouble. Yes, it freezes that fast and that often. The cure is to open the back and take out the battery and then put it back in, as it can't be turned off 'cause it's bloody frozen solid. It's a _good_ thing that the iPhone doesn't do this, as it doesn't have a removable battery. On the other hand... the iPhone doesn't freeze all the bloody time.

      I _will_ have a replacement phone by the end of the month, and if it's not another iPhone it'll be a nice cheap flip-phone. It most definitely will NOT be an Android. Not unless one of the fandroids around here send me one for free... and maybe not even then. A free Android which gives this much trouble would cost too much in wasted time to be worth the bother.

      Downvote away.

      1. DryBones

        James,

        So, what Android phone is it? I suspect Samsung, which is pronounced "marketing hype and bloated UI addons". Might want to try one of the Nexus for comparison.

        Also, I believe for Android phones without removable battery, there is a watchdog chip that monitors the power button. Hold it for 10s and bip, it resets, even in the midst of a hard lockup.

        1. James O'Shea

          It's a cheap, low-end, no-name Chinese Android, a ZTE v768. You know, an example of the type of phone that Apple should make in order to rebuild its marketshare. Cost me US$50, and that was far too bloody much. Perhaps an expensive name-brand phone would be better, but I've cruised the various fora of several Android vendors (including, of course, Samsung) and have noted that a _lot_ of Android phones seem to freeze for no reason. Indeed, the very fact that there is a special way to unfreeze the things says quite a bit.

          Basically, T-mobile support says (and numerous fora confirm) that when Android phones in general and my phone in particular run low on available RAM, they freeze. When they run low on space on their SSDs, they freeze. My phone is low on both RAM and storage, 'cause it's an older, cheaper, phone (it only runs Gingerbread and cannot be updated 'cause it doesn't have the RAM or storage, or, indeed, CPU, required) and unless I do things like clear files, down to logs, out of the storage and reboot the phone every ever so often, it'll freeze. It'll even tell me that it's going to freeze: I'll hear the little TM boing, and when I look at the phone it'll be rebooting spontaneously. Once it boots, I can't do anything with it. I can't get to the main screen. I can't send or receive calls. I can't do anything except pull the battery. Once I pull the battery and replace it, the phone works again. Until the next time.

          I've seen reports of brand-new phones, such as S5s, doing the same thing. (See http://forums.androidcentral.com/samsung-galaxy-s5/379912-s5-freezing-up.html, for example; note that that thread's been going on for _months_ and mentions numerous Samsung devices, all new, all doing the same thing) I really don't see any reason to pay a lot of money for a major brand Android and have the same problems again. I really don't.

          Sorry if this offends the local fandroids, but that's how it is. The Android doesn't work properly. It just doesn't. The iPhone does. As a direct result of my bad experiences with the Android (and my checking around to see if I was alone; I wasn't) I won't be chancing another Android. It's that simple.

          1. Kevin McMurtrie Silver badge

            Hardware bugs

            Most phones have hardware bugs of varying degrees. It's part of keeping up with the crazy pace of technological upgrades. Apple's iPhone is by no means immune but they're one of the better models when it comes to eventually receiving software workarounds. My experience with Samsung is that they don't care if the phone works at all.

          2. DryBones

            So, cheap, old Android phone produced as an exercise in how weak of hardware will take crapware and still boot is behaving badly. Got it. Seems to compare well with the complaints about how long in the tooth (read: unuseable) the iPhone 3S got after iOS for the iPhone 5 came out. Anyway!

            You might check the Moto G and maybe E, especially if you can get the Play Edition direct from Google. Direct updates, no carrier crap to get in the way and cause instability. They're as cheap as you can reasonably get a good smartphone off-contact, and Motorola seems to be on top of their game with updates for what does go through them. Reportedly might have beat the Nexus phones to one of the 4.4.X updates.

          3. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            @James O'Shea

            What in the hell would be the benefit to Apple to sell a $50 phone to "rebuild their market share"? Who the hell cares about market share? Apple may sell only 10% of the world's mobiles, but they make more money on those than everyone else combined selling the remaining 90%. Profit is, after all, what companies are in business for, not market share.

            People buying $50 phones aren't spending money on apps, so Apple losing a sale to Android in that bottom end of the market does not help Android become any more relevant to developers. Those who think Apple will fall victim to the fate the Mac did when its market share fell and developers abandoned it for Windows don't understand how different the mobile app market is from the PC app market.

      2. Mullerrad

        I got two android phones niether freezes good job as like the iphone sealed batteries. I don't appear to have any malware maybe because I check permissions and don't download crapware.

        Sometimes with a misbehaving phone is blast it back to factor settings and load apps one by one till you find out the bad one.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Android deployment

      Two reasons why:

      1) if doing BYOD, many people have Android and expect to use it

      2) if employer provided, they want to save money on the hardware

      Even if there are a lot more problems with Android, so long as the hardware savings outweigh the increased support costs, the bean counters will still think it is the right call to provide Android phones versus iPhone or WP8.

  10. Kevin McMurtrie Silver badge
    WTF?

    Spyware, spyware, spyware

    But people can't wait to use contextually aware personal assistants like Siri and Now.

    1. DryBones

      Re: Spyware, spyware, spyware

      Well, the data mining has always been there. The difference is that now we get to be one of the end users of it, too!

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