14 DAY TRIAL // A new report by Alcatel-Lucent highlights that most malware infections transmitted through mobile Internet connections are reaching desktops and laptops, despite the fact that most users are using Android devices.
Analyzing traffic data from 100 million devices in mobile networks where the Motive Security Guardian was installed, Alcatel-Lucent's Motive Security Labs was able to get an overview of how malware infections affected their customers in the first half of 2015.
The report's main finding is that, even if most people use mobile Internet connections primarily from their smartphones, malware infections occurred four out of five times on Windows PCs connected to dongles, mobile WiFi hotspots, or tethered through someone's phone.
An explanation for this might be that, since its beginnings, malware was specifically crafted to target Windows PCs, and even six years after Android's launch, there are still very few malware families targeting the operating system, despite being installed on over 1 billion devices.
What's even stranger is that Android malware infections seem to be falling since the beginning of the year, going from 45% to 20%.
This doesn't mean that, when they occur, infections are less dangerous, the report showing that 10 out of the top 25 most commonly detected malware types are spyware, viruses aimed at watching over and stealing a user's data.
For more details, you can read the full Alcatel-Lucent Motive Security Labs Malware Report H1 2015.
