Between March 2012 and March 2013, the Juniper Networks Mobile Threat Center (MTC) discovered mobile malware threats “growing at a rapid rate of 614 percent to 276,259 total malicious apps.”

Attackers are also leveraging “loosely regulated third-party app marketplaces” to distribute malware and more quickly introduce threats to the marketplace.

Juniper believes the surge is the most compelling example yet of increasingly higher cyber criminal interest in exploiting mobile devices (but mostly those running Android).

Attackers are maximizing their return on investment by focusing 92 percent of all MTC detected threats at Android, which has a commanding share of the global smartphone market.

Juniper points to research data from analyst firm Canalys to reiterate that Android devices accounted for the overwhelming majority (67.7 percent) of all smartphones shipped in 2012.

One billion Android-powered smartphones are expected to ship in 2017.

The post Juniper: Mobile Malware Threats Up 614% in One Year appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

In the first report of its kind, Lookout takes a deep dive into mobile threat data from the Lookout Platform in five countries (US, UK, Germany, India and Japan) to identify key threats in each region.

“As mobile marches on,” Lookout says in its report, “the threat landscape continues to evolve. Like any entrepreneur, the bad guys go where the opportunity exists and focus on the business models that are most successful – and like many businesses, there are differences that can be seen at the country level based on economics of a given region.”

Lookout also released the following infographic to highlight the biggest threats by location.

The post Infographic: Top Mobile Security Threats By Geography appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

As MMW reported Thursday morning, F-Secure‘s latest Mobile Threat Report shows Android malware continued to gain in its share last year, responsible for 79 percent of all threats in 2012 (up from 66 percent in 2011). Apple was also mentioned in the report, but saw it’s malware share at just 0.7%.

In his first tweet of 2013 (his last was a general Merry Christmas tweet), Shiller encouraged his followers to “be safe out there.”

And, by the way… he also attached a link to the F-Secure report.

Schiller immediately made waves with the post, which is clearly intended to highlight the purported superior malware resistance of iOS when compared to the malware magnet that is Android.

Although some found the tweet hilarious and fitting, others thought it was a cheap shot at a competitor.

Do you believe Schiller’s tweet was appropriate?

The post Prominent Apple Exec Takes Aim at Android Security on Twitter appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

On Thursday, Airpush announced what some are calling a major initiative to help eliminate malware distribution.

The announcement came at the SF AppShow where Airpush confirmed its partnership with Appthority, a leading and highly respected expert force in mobile app security.

“Mobile malware has been a thorn in the side of the thriving app ecosystem,” said Kevin Watkins, CTO and co-founder of Appthority. “We are proud to assist Airpush with the technology that improves the state of security across the app world. Airpush is being proactive by attacking the malware problem at its source distribution and that demonstrates their commitment to protecting their customers.”

Airpush says the partnership will integrate Appthority’s mobile security technology directly into the Airpush platform. The result will be a comprehensive scanning of all advertiser app promotions and URLs. This naturally serves as a nice supplementary level of security in Airpush’s manual approval process.

By integrating Appthority’s technology directly into its platform, Airpush has “virtually eliminated the threat of mobile malware distribution via its network of over 50,000 applications.”

To learn more about Airpush, click here.

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