“Online attacks against such prominent targets as Sony, Target and Home Depot have brought cybersecurity and digital privacy to the forefront of the national consciousness,” Brian Fung reports for The Washington Post. “But as the technologies we use grow more sophisticated, so will criminals’ attempts to defeat them, according to Chris Doggett, North American managing director of Kaspersky Lab, a Moscow-based international information security firm. In an interview this month in Washington, Doggett said financial fraud and identity theft pose far more danger to Americans than shadowy hacking groups such as Lizard Squad, which has taken partial credit for breaching Sony’s systems. He added that no network is ever completely secure…”
…It comes down to how easy a target is to breach. There’s fundamentally two parts to the formula for cybercriminals. One is, how big a target? How juicy is it? How attractive is it? How much money is there to steal? The other one is, how easy is it to breach? In mobile malware, for example, we see over 98 percent of the mobile malware that’s created is created for Android. Why? Because it’s much, much easier to exploit than iOS. — Chris Doggett, North American managing director of Kaspersky Lab
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: “Open.”
As in, “wide.”
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Thumper” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Security experts: Malware spreading to millions on Android phones – November 21, 2014
There’s practically no iOS malware, thanks to Apple’s smart control over app distribution – June 13, 2014
F-Secure: Android accounted for 99% of new mobile malware in Q1 2014 – April 30, 2014
Google’s Sundar Pichai: Android not designed to be safe; if I wrote malware, I’d target Android, too – February 27, 2014
Cisco: Android the target of 99 percent of world’s mobile malware – January 17, 2014
U.S. DHS, FBI warn of malware threats to Android mobile devices – August 27, 2013
Android app malware rates skyrocket 40 percent in last quarter – August 7, 2013
First malware found in wild that exploits Android app signing flaw – July 25, 2013
Mobile Threats Report: Android accounts for 92% of all mobile malware – June 26, 2013
Latest self-replicating Android Trojan looks and acts just like Windows malware – June 7, 2013
99.9% of new mobile malware targets Android phones – May 30, 2013
Mobile malware exploding, but only for Android – May 14, 2013
Mobile malware: Android is a bad apple – April 15, 2013
F-Secure: Android accounted for 96% of all mobile malware in Q4 2012 – March 7, 2013
New malware attacks Android phones, Windows PCs to eavesdrop, steal data; iPhone, Mac users unaffected – February 4, 2013
One reason Android well never be more than a bit player in the enterprise market.
This is going to be increasingly important for consumers, too. I sense of tidal wave of switchers away from Android and toward iOS, and security is just one of countless reasons.
Unless that iOS user visits MDN, then they can be automatically redirected to the App Store or any viscous site the advertiser pays for.
Come on MDN, ads are one thing but automatic involuntary redirects????
Fuck, I cannot disagree with this. I can’t visit MDN using Safari without being redirected. The worst part is, you don’t even have to click on anything. It will just randomly do it, even if you are just reading.
@MDN, you need to fix that shit. I get that you need to be paid by your advertisers, but get rid of the dicks.
I should clarify that I mean mobile Safari.
I don’t ever understand the downvotes on certain answers. So…. are these downvoted by people who LOVE having mobile Safari’s browser “hijacked” by javascript and taken to some shitty app in the store? You love just being whisked away while reading mid-sentence, not even touching your iPhone or iPad? I just don’t understand.
Yup, it really sucks that ‘this’ page auto loads a “You’ve been selected to win an iPad” in another tab which you have to click “OK” in order to close the tab, which then reloads the page to get yet another redirect to “You’ve been sel…”!
Scumbag behaviour MDN.
Just like I wrote in one of my blogs (shameless plug :P), Android’s security model is like an old Mitch Hedberg joke.
To do this show, I had to take a physical, and they asked me a lot of medical questions. And they were, like, yes and no questions, but they were very strangely worded. Like, ‘Have you ever tried sugar — or PCP?’
The answer is yes or no, and it’s an all-or-nothing question. In Android, you either say yes to everything (wants access to text, photos, microphone, spleen, etc.) or nothing. no picking and choosing like you can with iOS.
MDN?…WTF
Auto redirect loops you cant escape from, to ads I didn’t click!
The article link opens on the same page – never happened before.
Wordpress auto login is borked
The linked article says nothing about ‘98% of mobile malware on Android’
Meh
That’s because Google doesn’t want to do security updates to the 90% of old Android software that is used out there write now.