Almost half of India Web users attacked by local malware
According to Kaspersky Lab's second quarter report, Kaspersky Security Bulletin, for April to June 2013, 19.9 million malware threats were detected on the computers of the Kaspersky Security Network (KSN) participants in India.
Overall, 35.6 percent of users were attacked by Web borne threats during this period, according to Techgig.com. India ranks 15th overall in the world when it comes to online dangers for internet usage.
Furthermore, Kaspersky Lab's detected 5.39 million malware incidents on the computers on the KSN in India. This means 49.6 per cent of users in India were attacked by threats during his period, placing India 10th worldwide in terms of malware incidents.
While these numbers are astonishing, the numbers are most likely even higher for mobile users, assuming users have mobile protection to begin with. The same types of exploitation for computers exists for mobile devices, but with even more opportunities, such as downloading and installing apps from places that are neither trusted nor verified sources. Furthermore, in some instances, developers of apps that are being given for free can also have backdoor access to mobile devices. That is, the app has been programmed to crawl, search, and locate personal information of the user, and send it back to the developer.
Mobile banking has been available in India for several years now, but is still not fully utilized as it could be for bank customers. There is the fear and perception that their bank accounts could be compromised and hacking, thus leaving their balances at zero. Unfortunately, this scenario does occur in India, and almost always has the involvement of a shady and crooked bank official. However, in all fairness, banks do send both e-mail and SMS alerts for any and all transactions, including both online and mobile banking.
Internet users in India simply need to be more alert and vigilant when online, and pay attention to any and all abnormal activities online. However, it does become challenging to determine what is considered suspicious, behind the scenes activity when users aren't aware of what to look for. If anything, simple precautions such as not selecting features to keep a user logged in, or even opening an attachment without a virus scan first, can help prevent some attacks.
In the worst case scenario, if a user ends up at site where the homepage clearly states malicious software detected, they should not proceed further, and proceed back instead. That being said, it's ironic how so many users still don't follow these simple precautions, especially the last one, and end up with paying the consequences in the end.