Nearly one in 10 Singaporeans attacked by mobile malware in 2018

Trojan-Droppers were the most prevalent of the threats.

Almost one in 10 or 7.57% of Singaporeans were attacked by mobile malware in 2018, placing the country at the 40th spot globally with the highest number of users infected by cyber threats, according to Kapersky Lab’s latest mobile malware evolution 2018 report.

The Lion City recorded a relatively high banking malware infection rate at 0.14%, compared to its neighbours Philippines (0.06%), Indonesia (0.08%), and Thailand (0.10%). Malaysia has the highest number of detected mobile banking attacks in Southeast Asia (0.40%), followed by Vietnam (0.19%).

Globally, the number of users who encountered malware rose by 774,000 to 9,895,774 users in 2018. Amongst the threats encountered, the most significant growth was in the use of Trojan-Droppers, whose share almost doubled from 8.63% to 17.21%. This type of malware is designed to bypass system protection and deliver there all sorts of malware, from banking Trojans to ransomware.

Additionally, a fivefold increase in attacks using mobile malicious cryptocurrency miners was also observed in 2018, whilst 151,359 installation packages for mobile banking Trojans were detected, which is 1.6 times more than in the previous year.