Mobile banking Trojans increased by nearly twenty-fold between the beginning and end of 2013, according to Kaspersky Labs.
The IT security company said it had collected 1321 unique samples of mobile banking Trojans by the end of 2013 and that Android remained a prime target for cyber-criminals, with 98.05% of all mobile malware targeted at the platform.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Kaspersky said: "2013 was marked by a rapid rise in the number of Android banking Trojans.
"The cyber industry of mobile malware is becoming more focused on making profits more effectively, i.e., mobile phishing, theft of credit card information, money transfers from bank cards to mobile phones and from phones to the criminals’ e-wallets.
"Cybercriminals have become obsessed by this method of illegal earnings: at the beginning of the year we knew only 67 banking Trojans, but by the end of the year there were already 1321 unique samples."
The report said the majority of mobile banking Trojans attack users in Russia and the former Soviet Union, but is expected to spread in the near future:
"This situation will not last long: given the cybercriminals’ interest in user bank accounts, the activity of mobile banking Trojans is expected to grow in other countries in 2014."
Related articles:
Sopra Software deploys mobile banking app for bpost bank
Around 42% of British people use mobile banking: Consumer Intelligence research
SAP enables UBank to achieve mobile banking growth in Pakistan
