Last week we reported the latest numbers for Android installs, and in a surprise to no one, Gingerbread is by far the most used version of Android, with over 50-percent of devices carrying it. Because of this, it is also the version of the device most targeted by malware, according to a report from Kaspersky Lab. This only stands to reason; if you’re going to create malware, you’re going to make it for the OS with the most people using it.
In all, 28-percent of blocked malware attempts came from 2.3.6 Gingerbread devices, which is by far the most attacked version of Gingerbread. The second most attacked Gingerbread version is 2.3.4 which had 9-percent of the total malware attacks.The rest of the Gingerbread versions added up to around 20-percent, putting Gingerbread as a whole at just under 50% of all attacks.
The shocking thing about this report is how many attacks come from Ice Cream Sandwich devices. ICS has about half the install base of Gingerbread, but that did not equate to half the number of attacks. In fact, between 4.0.3 and 4.0.4, ICS had 38-percent of all attacks.
Jelly Bean is not specifically mentioned in the report, so we are assuming it is in the “other” category, which had 6-percent of attacks. Android 2.2.1 and 2.2.2 added up to 4-percent of the total, which means malicious individuals seem to be moving on from the older devices. The most common types of attacks were carried out by exploiting Java vulnerabilities and SMS Trojans that steal money from users by sending text messages to premium services.
