F-Secure Labs’ latest report affirms rise of malware infections in the country. According to F-Secure Labs’ ‘The state of Internet in India’ Report, Delhi suffered the maximum malware infections in 2014.
The report further says the top malware infection in India is still Botnet related. Hackers manage to own your PC’s and use them for spamming, DDOS (Type of Denial of Service (DoS) attack) or other malicious activity to make substantial amount of money.
The report also states that banking related malware has been consistently topping the chart in India. The ‘Ramnit’ malware steals bank user names and passwords and it mostly spreads through USB removable drives. Furthermore, PC’s in India are moving away from Windows XP. What was also observed was the decline in Downadup/Conficker infection over the past 3 years in India.
Sality, Ramnit, Trogan.LNK.Gen, Trogan.Script and Virtob are the top 5 malicious family detections; and Delhi (20%), Hyderabad (9%), Chennai (9%) and Chandigarh (7%) were the top malicious cities in 2014.
On the mobile front, premium rate SMS is still the No.1 reason behind a high number of SMS-related malware in the Android platform in India. This is in line with what the CERT-In (Computer Emergency Response Team of India) found in December of 2014. The mobile malwares are capable of collecting API key, Application ID, Carrier, Device manufacturer, Device model, GPS location, International Mobile, Equipment Identity (IMEI) number, Network operator, Package name and SDK version from your device. Mumbai, Delhi, Chandigarh, Chennai and Gurgaon have emerged as the top mobile infected cities in 2014
Commenting during a press meets to announce these findings, Pekka Usva, VP, Corporate Security, F-Secure, said, “Malware trends and the state of mobile threat landscape places cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Chandigarh, Hyderabad and Chennai straight as the focal point of the attackers. Despite the decline of Downadup/Conficker, infections like Sality, Ramnit and Virtob have continue to mark their presence in the Indian threat landscape over the period of last 3 years. 2014 has highlighted many threats and F-Secure has timely highlighted them to keep its existing and prospective users safe. We will continue with our constant effort to secure you and ensure you switch on freedom.”