They might not have the virus-prone reputation of their desktop brethren, but don’t kid yourself – mobile devices are under constant threat.
Fortunately, owners of Samsung’s newest Galaxy smartphone should be well protected, thanks to the copy of McAfee VirusScan Mobile that will come pre-installed on every Note 7, Intel Security Group announced Tuesday.
In a statement, Intel Security corporate vice president John Giamatteo said that with an ever-increasing number of consumers use their smartphones to connect online, mobile devices are now “the tip of the spear” for new hacking methods, noting that by collaborating with Samsung, his company was ensuring the Korean tech giant’s customers would continue to enjoy a safe mobile Internet experience.
A recent report by Intel Security’s McAfee Labs division highlights the growing number of security threats faced by mobile Internet users.
Among other findings, it discovered that mobile malware rates grew by 23 per cent quarter over quarter during the first three months of 2016, with new mobile malware incidents growing by 17 per cent and new ransomware rising by 24 per cent during the same period.
Overall, McAfee Labs found that mobile malware rates had more than doubled over the last four quarters, and that mobile consumers were now facing 305 new threats every minute, or more than five every second.
One emerging attack method, according to the report, is mobile app collusion, in which apps appear benign viewed independently, but might be malicious when they run on the same device and share information.
Also highlighted by the report is Pinkslipbot, a powerful strain of malware designed to steal personal and financial data from infected machines which has been systematically enhanced since 2007. McAfee detected more than 4,200 unique Pinkslipbot binaries during the first quarter of 2016, according to the report.
Meanwhile, according to McAfee Labs vice president Vincent Weafer, more than 4.3 million attempts were made every hour encouraging the company’s customers to connect to risky URLs; more than 5.8 million infected files were exposed to customers’ networks; and 1.8 million potentially unwanted programs attempted to install or launch themselves.
