Delhi tops list for malware-infected PCs, mobiles in India: F-Secure

With the increase in Internet penetration and smartphone growth in India, malicious software for both smartphones and computers is rising. According to a new report by Finnish security firm F-Secure named ‘The state of Internet in India’ for 2014, India’s capital Delhi is the most vulnerable to such risks and it has the maximum malware-infected computers and mobile phones. “New Delhi becomes the top malicious city, meaning the ability of hackers to attack corporates as well as individual users is highest here compared to other cities in the country,” Amit Nath, country manager (India and SAARC) at F-Secure said. According to the new report, Delhi recorded 20 percent PC malware infections in 2014, followed by Hyderabad and Chandigarh at 9 percent each. Ramnit, a banking-related malware that is used to steal user names and passwords and easily spreads through USB removable storage drives was seen widely in India. The malware infections in India were mostly botnet-related. Botnet is Internet-connected program that communicates with other similar programs to send spam email or even contribte in distributed denial-of-service attacks. In the mobile phone segment, Delhi NCR region witnessed maximum malware infections at 24 percent. The report says 22 percent phones in Mumbai were infected by malware, followed by Chandigarh at 10 percent, Delhi at 9 percent, Chennai at 8 percent and Gurgaon at 8 percent. Mobile malware is also capable of accessing personal information including GPS location, IMET number and network operator details. Most phones were infected due to the premium rate SMS-related malware that easily attack Android devices.