Android sees a 472% increase in malware since July
Android sees a 472% increase in malware since July — Android is definitely winning... the race for the most malware, that is. — According to a new study from the Juniper Global Threat Center, malware on Android rose an incredible 472% since July 2011.
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the third escalation in a year-long pattern: MobileCrunch reported a 400 percent jump in Android malware back in May 2011, Lookout documented a significant rise over the following six months in its August threat report, and Juniper's Global Threat Center now puts the increase since July at 472%. The curve tracks Android's commercial ascent almost exactly — Gartner put the OS above 50 percent of Q3 smartphone sales and comScore had it at 40 percent of U.S. subscribers by August.
First-order effects
- Android users face a sharply elevated risk surface right now, particularly around app installation, while Google owns a security problem that scales with its market leadership rather than shrinking with it.
Second-order effects
- Security vendors like Lookout and Juniper gain a fast-growing market for mobile protection products, and carriers and handset makers shipping Android are pushed to bundle or preinstall security software as a differentiator.
Third-order effects
- If malware growth keeps pace with market share, Android's open distribution model becomes the central battleground between Google's openness strategy and Apple's curated App Store approach — with enterprise buyers, who weigh security heavily, as the swing constituency.
The trend: Mobile malware is consolidating around the dominant platform, making security posture an increasingly decisive axis of competition between Android and iOS.