Economía Digital en Inglés: Why we need to start worrying about malware in smartphones

Almost everyone has some sort of antivirus program against viruses and malware on their computers, whether they have a PC or Mac, laptop or desktop. However, one device people tend to forget about is their smartphone, and even tablets.

According to kaspersky.com and a survey done by Kaspersky Lab and B2B International, 28% users do not know anything about mobile malware. With the emergence of smartphones being so recent, most people tend to believe that phones cannot get viruses or malware. The study also found that 31% of smartphones and 41% of tablets were not even password protected.

In a growing age of mobile device use, having your mobile device protected is of the utmost importance. Hackers are now realizing that all the important information they need can be found on a person’s smartphone, there’s no need to even worry about the computer. That may sound crazy, but they’re actually right. The majority of e-commerce has shifted to mobile devices, making smartphones a prime place to access credit card information. Also, people now have started to access their bank accounts from their smartphones, providing even more valuable information. Especially with the emergence of mysterious free WiFi networks, it is becoming increasingly more important to protect mobile devices.

Even more concerning, the study found that in 2014 financial malware attacks on Android users grew by 3.25 times from the previous year, meaning that hackers are getting better and users still do not care that much about mobile security. This attitude needs to change immediately, because as society starts to depend more on mobile devices, hackers will only get better at creating malware for them.