A Quarter of Consumers Don’t Understand the Risks of Mobile Cyberthreats, Kaspersky Lab Survey Shows

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WOBURN, MA – February 26, 2015 — /BackupReview.info/ — Mobile devices are more popular than ever but their owners still underestimate the danger they might encounter. According to the Consumer Security Risk survey conducted by Kaspersky Lab and B2B International — http://bit.ly/1DeJ9Kr , 28 percent of participants shared that they know nothing or very little about mobile malware. Underestimating the danger of cyber threats on mobile devices is also risky; 26 percent of those surveyed said they were aware of cyber threats but didn’t worry about them.

The survey shows that only 58 percent of Android-based smartphones and 63 percent of Android tablets are protected by an anti-virus solution, while 31 percent of smartphones and 41 percent of tablets are not even password-protected. Their users’ risky behavior might stem from the fact that 28 percent of them are not aware of the existence of cyberthreats targeting mobiles and 26 percent of those surveyed said they were aware but didn’t worry about it.

To make matters worse 18 percent of unprotected Android-based smartphones contain information that attracts cybercriminals: PIN codes for bank cards, passwords to online banking systems and other financial data. 24 percent of survey participants store on their smartphones passwords to social networks, personal and work email, VPN and other sensitive resources. They also store personal emails (49%), work emails (18%), as well as the “data that they would not want anyone to see” (10%) on their smartphones.

According to the survey, Android users encounter online threats more often than the users of Windows-based devices*. The latter also know more about the dangers and tend to protect their devices in 9 out of 10 cases. Thus the survey found that over a 12-month period 41 percent of smartphone users and 36 percent of tablet users faced malicious applications, 18 percent of smartphone users and 24 percent of tablet users had their online service accounts hacked, while financial cyberattacks affected 43 percent of smartphone users and 50 percent of tablet users.

“It is not surprising that mobile users are facing online threats more often now: devices are capable of doing so much more, and many more people are using them, so of course they will attract fraudsters. To avoid falling victim to scams, users are advised to protect their devices against cyber threats and be especially careful with any sensitive data stored on them,” said Victor Yablokov, Head of Mobile Product Line at Kaspersky Lab.

Kaspersky Internet Security for Android safeguards Android-based devices from known and new mobile threats. In addition to the anti-malware and anti-phishing protection, it includes the Anti-Theft and the Privacy Protection technologies. The solution does not significantly affect the performance of the operating system and battery life.

To fill these knowledge gaps, Kaspersky Lab has produced a video on the evolution of mobile danger. Further information, including data on mobile threats, the different types of threats and methods of infection can be found in “The Enemy on your Phone” report on Securelist.com.

Video – The enemy on your phone: evolution of mobile threats

* Hereinafter, it refers to the users who named a device working on a given platform their main device to access the Internet. Due to the fact that people can use several devices on different platforms at the same time, they may face the threats mentioned in the text on any of them.

About Kaspersky Lab
Kaspersky Lab is the world’s largest privately held vendor of endpoint protection solutions. The company is ranked among the world’s top four vendors of security solutions for endpoint users*. Throughout its more than 17-year history Kaspersky Lab has remained an innovator in IT security and provides effective digital security solutions for large enterprises, SMBs and consumers. Kaspersky Lab, with its holding company registered in the United Kingdom, currently operates in almost 200 countries and territories across the globe, providing protection for over 400 million users worldwide. Learn more at www.kaspersky.com.

For the latest in-depth information on security threat issues and trends, please visit:

Securelist | Information about Viruses, Hackers and Spam – https://securelist.com/
Follow @Securelist on Twitter

Threatpost | The First Stop for Security News – https://threatpost.com/
Follow @Threatpost on Twitter

* The company was rated fourth in the IDC rating Worldwide Endpoint Security Revenue by Vendor, 2013. The rating was published in the IDC report “Worldwide Endpoint Security 2014–2018 Forecast and 2013 Vendor Shares (IDC #250210, August 2014). The report ranked software vendors according to earnings from sales of endpoint security solutions in 2013.

Media Contact
Sarah (Bergeron) Kitsos
781.503.2615
sarah.kitsos@kaspersky.com
www.kaspersky.com

Source: Kaspersky

Tags: Kaspersky, Kaspersky Lab