Photographs: Reuters Priyanka Joshi in Mumbai
It is not good news for the fastest-growing telecom market of the world.
India, which is expected to be home to four million smartphones in the next two years, is already on the cyber criminal map.
The number of malicious programmes targeting mobile sets has more than doubled between August 2009 and December 2010.
In 2010, over 65 per cent more new threats targeting mobile phones were detected than in the previous year.
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Rise in cyber threats to smartphones
Image: Cyber criminals are trying to exploit vulnerabilities.Photographs: Reuters
Jagannath Patnaik, director (channel sales), Kaspersky Lab, South Asia, says that in 2010, more than 16 brands of smartphones were launched in India.
He added: "In a country, where mobile penetration is much higher than PC penetration, and mobile phone density is growing at a staggering rate, cyber criminals are trying hard to exploit vulnerabilities in the mobile platform.
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Rise in cyber threats to smartphones
Image: Threats to Android will increase.Photographs: Reuters
Kaspersky Lab predicts an increase in the number of vulnerabilities found on mobile platforms, and an increase in the number of threats for Android.
Analysts also believe that cyber criminals will continue to use short numbers.
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Rise in cyber threats to smartphones
Image: Sending trojans through text messages is the easiest way.Photographs: Reuters
"The reason is simple: any mobile device, be it a smartphone or a basic mobile phone, has a direct connection to its owner's money via their mobile account. It is this 'direct access' that cybercriminals actively exploit," said Denis Maslennikov, a senior malware analyst at Kaspersky Lab.
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Rise in cyber threats to smartphones
Image: Criminals are also targeting iPhones.Photographs: Reuters
In another instance, a worm designed for the iPhone was used by cyber criminals to launch a targeted phishing attack against users of a Dutch bank.
When an attempt was made to visit the bank's website from a smartphone infected with the worm, the user was redirected to a phishing website.
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