Roughly one in ten Android apps are now fully or partially malware, according to 24.4 million sample files collected during the first six months of 2014.
Conducted by Cheetah Mobile and reported by Infosecurity, of the 24.4 million samples, 2.2 million turned out to be viruses, or roughly 9% of the total. In the first half of 2014, the number of samples that contained viruses also grew rapidly. Cheetah Mobile’s collection of 2.2 million virus samples constitutes an increase of 20.5 times over 2012’s numbers and an increase of 2.5 times over the total from 2013.
The firm also found that payment-based viruses are becoming more prevalent, endangering the finances of users. In fact, they accounted for more than two thirds of the aforementioned viruses, while consumption viruses occupy a distant second place at 16%. These two types of viruses mainly result in financial losses for the user.
