About 1 million devices infected in India in 2015; third party app key culprit: Survey

In India, about one million devices got infected last year and a larger android user base is not only contributing to that, but third-party app markets have been contaminated by malware due to the weak monitoring of this segment, a survey said.

Cheetah Mobile, a global mobile utility provider committed to providing a safer, faster and simpler mobile internet experience, has announced findings from its latest global mobile security report focused on Android devices. The report details the growth of viruses, phishing sites, malware, infected devices across major markets (including India), data leakages, and rounds out with security predictions for 2016. It said that China, India and Indonesia were the three most severely afflicted countries owing to a weak monitoring of the third-party app market.

Total infections in India stood at 11,170,960, followed by China (10,461,684) and America (9,007,913).The company’s annual security report is cumulative data based on 567 million global monthly active users and an overall install base of almost two billion users using Cheetah Mobile’s utility applications on their devices.

The number of Android viruses exceeded to 9.5 million, which is larger than twice the total number in the past three years. Mobile payments have been targeted by viruses, with thousands of companies and hundreds of millions of users have been affected by information leaks in 2015.

Android vulnerabilities emerge one after another, from the Stage fright vulnerability which affected 95% Android devices to the wormhole compromising millions, it seemed like Android vulnerabilities would never end.