Maimpok

It almost brings a little pain to still report on and mention Android Gingerbread, but in reality, it still remains the most used version of Android. And given that, it also remains the version of Android that is most targeted for malware. In fact, according to a recent report, Android 2.3.6 Gingerbread currently leads in terms of blocked malware attempts. That number 28 percent.


The interesting part here, while some will consider this expected given Gingerbread is the most used version of Android — some other numbers may sway that thought a bit. It was noted that;

“in 48% of all cases victims of cybercriminals used Gingerbread, which was installed on 55% of all devices, while in 43% of all cases the victims had Ice Cream Sandwich, the latest version of Android OS, which is installed on 23.7% of all devices.”

A diagram of that can be seen below.

Otherwise, some other interesting tidbits coming from this report include that Q3 2012 saw introduction over 9,000 new malicious .dex files. This comes as being 5,000 files fewer than Q2 2012, but 3,500 more than Q1 2012. In other words, these are down from the previous quarter, but still up for the year.
Finally, the majority of malware attempts (57 percent) came from SMS trojans which attempt to steal monty by sending text messages to premium rate numbers. Following the SMS trojans are regular trojans at 22 percent, and then moving onto RiskTool and AdWare — each having just 5 precent.
Of course, possible the best takeaway here — regardless of the version of Android you happen to be running — use common sense when clicking links and opening things.