With over 4.5 billion smartphones in use worldwide, smartphone users are increasingly vulnerable to malware and virus infections.

Smartphones can be infected by phishing emails, malicious websites, and malicious applications. Even a simple process such as downloading an app to your phone is fraught with security risks.

Smartphones are also vulnerable to the traditional internet threats of malware and viruses.

Approximately 80% of smartphone users access the internet via their smartphones. Although the overall number of internet users is expected to decline in the coming years as the number of people with 4G and 5G connections on their phones rises, smartphone use is expected to continue to grow as the smartphone’s functions grow and improve.

In fact, the Pew Research Center has predicted that the percentage of people in the USA who have smartphones will rise from 80% in 2016 to 97% in 2019. Therefore, the number of infected users will also continue to rise.

What The Malwers Are?

Malware includes any software or program that can be used to damage a computer, computer network, or mobile device in any way.

Malware can spread from one device to another using a variety of means, including: email attachments, malicious websites, malicious websites that are made to look like legitimate websites, malicious websites that are made to look like an app, links embedded in social media, malicious attachments within an email, and malicious apps.

Malware can be in the form of viruses, worms, trojans, spyware, keyloggers, rootkits, etc.

The most common ways of spreading malware include: phishing and malvertising, clickjacking, drive-by downloads, and malicious software embedded in a website.

In addition to the internet threat, smartphone users are also particularly vulnerable to the threat of viruses.

Smartphone users, or “digital natives,” are far more likely than traditional computing device users to be the target of cybercrime, including malware.

Smartphone users are also more likely to be the targets of email phishing scams. They are also more likely to download and install software on their phones that they did not initiate, such as applications or other software that they do not intend to install.

The most common malware types targeted at android users are adware, trojans, spyware, and keyloggers.

In the last few years, there has been an increase in the number of mobile malware attacks because mobile users are more likely to download and install programs from the internet than desktop users.

In fact, since 2011, there has been an over 300% increase in the number of malicious apps in the Google Play Store.

However, android has features that have made it difficult for mobile users to download malicious applications.

Which Smartphones Are More Likely To Become Infected?

Because of the increasing number of infected users, the threat of mobile malware has become a major concern.

In the last few years, the number of malicious apps in the Google Play Store has increased significantly.

In fact, there were 2,000,000 unique malicious apps in the Google Play Store in 2014 and about 1.4 million unique malicious apps in the Google Play Store in 2016.

Malware for Android is more likely to come in the form of malicious applications than malware for iOS.

Whereas iOS applications are vetted by Apple before they are made available to the public, apps made for the play store also need to go through an approval process, but the app store is harder to get approved.

And apps for the play store get published much faster. Malware written for the iOS platform is designed to run on Apple’s proprietary operating system, so it is unlikely to work on other types of phones. Although Android users are more likely to download Android-based malware, iOS users are likely to be affected by malware that targets their operating system.

Android phones have a greater number of vulnerabilities than iPhones because they are more open-ended, and they are more often targeted.

Because of these features, Android users are more vulnerable to malware and viruses than iPhone users.

For example, it is much easier to download an app for an iPhone than for an Android device.

The vast majority of Android users download their apps from other sources than the Google Play Store, whereas many fewer iPhone users download apps from  from other sources than the App Store.

Preinstaled Spywers

Both Apple and Google have preinstalled spywers on their phones.

Apple has a few of its own and has preinstalled spywers from 3rd party developers. Google has many preinstalled spywers on its services, such as Google Maps and YouTube.

These services collect user information and allow the company to track users on its apps and website.

Other Sources

In the years following 9/11, the US government was determined to “do whatever it took” to spy on citizens.

The US National Security Agency (NSA) has since implemented a secret program called PRISM to track users of social media and phone apps, and collect information on those users.

One such app was Apple’s iMessage, which allows users to send and receive text messages, photos, videos, and voice recordings, using a smartphone.

Apple has confirmed to The Guardian that PRISM allows the NSA to “pull all your data from all your devices” and that “any communications — whether it be a text, a photo, or any type of data at all — go back to us”.

The N.S.A. does not need to access the content of your phone to know who you are. When your smartphone communicates with other devices, it uses a technology called near-field communications, or NFC.

Most smartphones now have NFC technology, which works by using the mobile phone’s own antenna and chip to collect data and transmit it to a nearby device.

A smartphone’s NFC chip can collect information about its owner from nearby devices, such as phones and tablets, without the owner needing to type in a unique identifier or password.

China appears to have developed spyware that exploits the security vulnerabilities of several leading smartphone manufacturers, including Apple, Samsung, and Huawei, according to security researchers and industry news sites.

The spyware, called FinFisher and dubbed “Golden Shield,” is the most sophisticated mobile surveillance tool yet developed by the Chinese government and is currently being used by the country’s spook agencies to spy on thousands of people around the world.

It can turn on the microphone, camera, and GPS chip on a targeted phone and collect information on the user’s location and contacts.

As a result, it is not a question whether smartphones can be infected with malware and viruses. The actual question is how many you already have on your device and where they came from?

Summarize

• Smartphones are also vulnerable to the traditional internet threats of malware and viruses.

• Both Apple and Google have preinstalled spywers on their phones.

• The US National Security Agency (NSA) has since implemented a secret program called PRISM to track users of social media and phone apps, and collect information on those users.

• The spyware, called FinFisher and dubbed “Golden Shield,” is the most sophisticated mobile surveillance tool yet developed by the Chinese government and is currently being used by the country’s spook agencies to spy on thousands of people around the world.

How Can You Protect Yourself?

To protect yourself from smartphone malware, used by cyber criminals and hackers, it is important to update the mobile operating systems on your devices regularly, and to maintain security on your phone by installing updates promptly.

Make sure that you are using reliable sources from which you can download these updates. In addition, you should create a secure password on your phone to keep hackers out.

Be cautious when downloading apps because many apps on the app store are misleading and may look legitimate, but are actually malicious.

You can also scan an app with anti-malware apps and websites before downloading and installing it.

However, the best way to protect oneself against government snooping is to avoid using your smartphones at all.

Who knows who is snooping on you while you read this post ?