Industry News Home More stories like this... RSS Feed

The malware threat is 'going mobile'

Internet security is not the only thing to be threatened by malicious code such as malware, it has been claimed.

According to Kaspersky Lab, there has been a large increase in the number of Trojans and viruses which can attack regular mobile phones.

Denis Maslennikov, senior virus analyst at the firm, said the main objective of today's mobile malware is making money.

"Although the vast majority of all mobile malware is designed to run under Symbian, we are seeing a growth in other platforms," he said.

He pointed out that in 2006 83 per cent of mobile malware was aimed at the Symbian operating system, with just seven per cent targeting Windows Mobile and three per cent affecting Java platforms.

However, there has been a drastic change since then and malware attacks targeting Symbian handsets now account for just five per cent of the total.

Mr Maslennikov said that the number of mobile malware varieties has grown by 184 per cent since 2006.

According to Secunia, browsing the web and internet security are now inseparable.

Malware - PC Tools software solutions are designed to track and eradicate malware before it becomes a problem. Visit www.pctools.com to upgrade your protection