Posted on Wednesday, May 23 2012 @ 21:21 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
Security firm McAfee claims in its new Q1 2012 Threats Report that it identified 7,000 pieces of malware for Android in the first quarter, an increase of 1,200 percent versus the fourth quarter of 2011. Additionally, McAfee also notes that PC malware samples found hit 83 million, up from 75 million samples at the end of Q4 2011.
"Mobile malware raced up a significant incline during quarter one 2012, with 8,000 total mobile malware samples collected," McAfee said, adding that "financial profit is one of the main motivators for spreading malware on the Android platform".
Across all platforms, McAfee SVP Vincent Weafer said the firm had detected eight million new malware samples in the first quarter, "showing that malware authors are continuing their unrelenting development of new malware".
The report found that the first quarter had the largest number of PC malware instances detected per quarter in the last four years, bringing the grand total to 83 million malware samples found, up from 75 million samples at the end of the last quarter of 2011.
McAfee said that the major contributors were strong increases in rootkits as well as password stealers, which reached approximately one million new samples.
Source: The Inquirer
