Has Android Malware Tripled in Recent Months? Not So Fast - feltonbreserand

There never seems to be any shortage of Android malware reports current in the news, and today one came out that sounds alarming indeed.

"Android Under Attack: Malware Levels for Google's OS Rise Threefold in Q2 2012" was the title of the press release from antivirus vendor Kaspersky announcing information technology, in fact, and right happening cue headlines are popping functioning crossways the tech media ringing that dire warning.

But is it really as bad as all that? Probably non. In fact, as pointed out past security-focused publication The H on Thursday, data from competing stable F-Secure paint a very different icon for the very same time period. In point of fact, kind of than a tripling of Mechanical man malware in the second quarter, F-Secure set up solitary a coy rise.

How to explain the difference? It's all a issue of methodology, according to The H, which calls F-Secure's approach "more sophisticated."

Bottom line? Don't start panicking honourable yet.

'Over 14,900 New Malicious Programs'

"The number of new malicious programs targeting the Android platform has almost trebled in the second quarter of the year," Kaspersky wrote in its announcement.

"All over the three months in question, terminated 14,900 new leering programs targeting this program were added to Kaspersky Lab's database," it added.

The complete version of Kaspersky's Q2 IT Threat Phylogeny study is available online.

Over at F-Secure, however, the findings are pretty different.

'A Some Better Measurement'

In a comparable report (PDF) also covering the second quarter, F-Secure reported finding only 40 new malicious Humanoid application package files (APKs), amounting to a 64 per centum increase over the previous quarter.

Cardinal of those 40 were new families, while 21 were variants of existing ones, F-Secure said.

The departure as the disparity is that Kaspersky's data on the face of it represents what are called "unique samples"–which could easy comprise generated "by replacing an 'A' with an 'a' in the code," The H notes–piece F-Secure bases its own numbers connected malware families or variants.

While the unique taste come nea is wanton to implement, it's too "much worthless," the issue asserts. F-Secure's go about, on the other hand, "provides a much fitter mensuration of the literal terror compared to the inflated unique samples values," it concludes.

Worth a Closer Look

This is not to sound out that even F-Secure's mere 64 percent increase isn't worth worrying virtually, of naturally.

All the same, IT's intelligibly Charles Frederick Worth considering the methods behind the numbers racket a trifle more carefully as well. It's all too easy to seize upon alarmist figures when writing reports and headlines, but those Book of Numbers don't base untold without a clear apprehension of the information itself.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/460718/has_android_malware_tripled_in_recent_months_not_so_fast.html

Posted by: feltonbreserand.blogspot.com

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