Malware Infection Rate For Android Devices Measured By Researchers

UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI, HELSINKI, FINLAND. Researchers were able to measure the infection rate of malware attacking Android-based smartphones. In these modern times, it is almost impossible to run into someone who doesn’t have a mobile phone. In fact, most people own smart phones nowadays. Smartphones run on different mobile operating systems such as Android, Blackberry, iOS and Windows Phone.

Among these mobile operating systems, Android and iOS are the 2 most commonly and more popularly used. iOS for Apple products is known for its high level built-in security system which prevents its devices from getting infected with malicious software or malware.

However, mobile devices that run on Android OS are more prone to malware infections. Android devices get infected at around 0.25 percent which is significantly high. Even if there are several antivirus and anti-malware security programs being offered free for Android-based mobile devices, it is obviously not enough.

Every year, new strains of Android malware are being announced as they infect mobile devices consistently. These infections are only announced once they have attacked. If smartphones would be attacked to the same extent as personal computers used to be, we can expect much severe damage.

There is a great difference in the estimates of infection severity. According to an estimate by an anti-virus company, more than 4 percent of Android devices are infected by malware. A group of academic researchers from the US says that less than 0.0009 per cent of smartphones in the US is infected by malware. These measurements are quite confusing since there is a great difference between each one.

That is what the researchers from the University of Helsinki will be presenting at this year’s World Wide Web conference. They will be providing an answer to the disparity of Android malware infection estimates. The team of researchers is led by Professor N. Asokan and Professor Sasu Tarkoma. They are working on discovering the true extent of malware infection in Android devices.

The team discovered that infection rates are significantly higher in Android devices at around 0.25 percent as compared to the previous independent estimate. These data came from 50 000 devices collected in a period of seven months during the study.

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