We recently reported that the number of malicious and high risk apps on the Android platform crossed the one million mark. It’s important to note that this beats by a full quarter our CTO Raimund Genes’ prediction from November 2012 that we would cross this mark by the end of 2013.
Raimund took a few minutes to share his thoughts on the significance of this event and put it in historical context. It took 18 years for malware on the Windows platform to reach the 1 million mark. It’s only taken 5 years to cross this mark on the Android platform. Mobile malware is on “steroids” he says.
And there’s no reason to expect this situation to get any better anytime soon. As he notes, fragmentation, lack of support from carriers and handset makers exacerbate the situation.
Most importantly, the Android malware problem doesn’t just threaten people with Android phones. The battle against this problem consumes resources in the security industry and keeps them from preparing for the next big threat arena on the horizon: the Internet of Everything.
Click to see more of what he has to say.
And stay tuned for Raimund’s predictions for 2014 which will be coming in a few weeks.
