A further area of significant concern is an explosion in Blackhole Exploit Kits, used by criminals to coordinate attacks. During one week in February 2011, Blackhole attacks jumped from a few hundred per day to an overwhelming 800,000 in a day. This activity, combined with soaring levels of Android malware, is marking an increased professionalism in the structure and operations of the organized criminals behind them.
The United States are still the dominant source of spam with English as the main language used in spam messages. However, with a Brazilian ISP as the most used internet provider and Portuguese as the second language, Brazil is a clear runner up.
With smart phones becoming more like computers, the first quarter saw a notable increase in risk for smartphone users and the Android platform in particular; AVG blocked an average of 100,000 spam and phishing text messages per day.
The open source nature of the OS as well as the open-garden approach in allowing users to install software on the mobile device opens the door for hackers to write malicious code. This is why Android users should install additional security solutions such as AVG Mobilation for Android which is helping prevent users from downloading over 10,000 infected applications a day.
"The increasing professionalism behind some of the threats clearly demonstrates the profit that can be made," said Yuval Ben-Itzhak, Chief Technology Officer, AVG Technologies. "These campaigns are well planned and well funded, therefore; they demand not only for very effective counter technical measures but also for the need to raised awareness among the average user."
"A Latvian gang was able to bring 600 attack servers online for just a couple of weeks in a highly targeted Blackhole attack. This resulted in over 800,000 detections per day by our servers." added Ben-Itzhak. "If this amount of investment apparently pays off for these gangs, others will probably follow soon."
"The fact that the battlefield is extending to mobile, particularly Android, means that people need security that is fitted to the mobile environment," said Karel Obluk, Chief Scientist, AVG Technologies. "Users need cloud-based protection to offload the process from the mobile device to stay safe while not draining resources on the device. Sophisticated technology, such as AVG Mobilation for Android, provides high-tech solutions to protect users and their valuable data on-the-go."
About the report
The report is based on the Community Protection Network traffic and data followed by research and analysis performed by AVG, over the three-month period. It provides an overview of web, mobile devices, spam risks and threats. The statistics referenced are obtained from the AVG Community Protection Network.
AVG Community Protection Network is an online neighbourhood watch, helping everyone in the community to protect each other. Information about the latest threats is collected from customers who choose to participate in the product improvement program and shared with the community to make sure everyone receives the best current possible protection.
With more than 120 million users using AVG's various applications provide us with 1.5 billion potential threats to analyze daily. AVG provides strong community protection and each new user who chooses to participate increases the security level of all the community as a whole.
