Android is the dominant platform at the moment, and as such there are definitely lots of malicious activities targeting the mobile OS; with over 1.4 billion people who use an Android smartphone or tablet per day, and the fact that it’s open source, and therefore free for manufacturers to use makes it a big deal.
While the openness is partly the reason for the dominance, on the other hand, it has led to a situation whereby most Android phones are not regularly updated with the latest security patches.
Albeit, Google had been pretty serious with keeping Android secure over the years, with security updates being pushed out monthly, but still, not every smartphone and tablet receives these monthly security updates.
Even the Android security team had at one time admitted that roughly half of the devices in use at the end of 2016 had not received an update for at least 12 months.
As a result, tech-savvy consumers are forced to either buy a new phone in order to keep it secure, or rely on community developers to maintain and support the device with custom ROMs.
But, what's the future of Android malware really like? A new report from G DATA shows exactly how more pieces of malware are targeted at Android every single day, and the unfortunate state of Android security updates.
The research released at the end of last month that detailed their findings for the first quarter of 2017, disclosed over 750,000 new Android malware applications during the first quarter of the year.
According to the report, 2014 witnessed about 1.55 million pieces of Android malware, upped from 2013 estimate of 1.2 million, and 3.5 million instance of Android malware projected for the current year, but it could go even higher.
On the average, the stats equate a little under 8,400 instances of new Android malware discovered every single day.
Although the potential damage could be frightening, as the Android fragmentation problem is not easily solved, which may mean the question of Android security comes down to the device.
