Kindsight Security Labs has released its malware report for Q2 2012, highlighting top security threats such as Flashback, ZeroAccess and DNSChanger, and a recent surge in Android malware samples.
The US-based security and analytics provider released a quarterly report analysing malware infections in home networks, mobile devices and computers connected through mobile adapters or tethered through a mobile device. The latest report identifies statistics and trends for the period from April to June 2012.
According to the report, about one out of every 140 devices on mobile networks was infected in some way, and these were mainly Android devices and laptops connected to a mobile network. In fact, Android malware samples were found to have increased by 300pc over the course of the three months.
High-level threats
About 14pc of home networks were infected with malware in Q2, with the number of high-level threats, such as bots, Trojans and backdoors, up by 50pc.
ZeroAccess was found to have infected nearly one in every 100 homes, which connect to more than 1.2m computers globally. Users infected with this botnet can experience ad click fraud and malicious bandwidth usage equivalent to downloading 45 movies.
“In recent months, we’ve seen the ZeroAccess botnet update its command and control protocol and grow to infect more computers while connecting to more than 1m computers globally,” said Kevin McNamee, security architect and director of Kindsight Security Labs. “The concern with ZeroAccess is that it is using the subscriber’s bandwidth maliciously, which will cost them money as they exceed bandwidth caps. And, once the computer is compromised, it can also spread additional malware or launch new attacks.”
Flashback, a Trojan targeted at Mac OS X, infected 10pc of homes with at least one Mac computer during the month of April, putting it at the top of Kindsight’s list of top 20 home network infections and internet threats four weeks in a row.
Kindsight also measured that 10pc of computers infected with DNSChanger had still not been fixed by the end of June, facing an ‘Internet Doomsday’ on 9 July.
Computer virus image via Shutterstock
