The figures above are based on detection statistics received from Kaspersky users who consented to sharing usage data with Kaspersky Security Network. The data for years preceding 2023 may differ from that published previously, as the calculation methodology was refined, and the data was retrospectively revised in 2023.
The year in figures
According to Kaspersky Security Network, in 2023:
Our solutions blocked almost 33.8 million malware, adware, and riskware attacks.
The most common threat to mobile devices was adware: 40.8% of all threats detected.
We detected more than 1.3 million malicious installation packages, 154,000 of these containing a mobile banking Trojan.
The year’s trends
Malware, adware, and riskware attacks on mobile devices dipped in February, only to rise steadily until the end of the year. In total, Kaspersky products blocked 33,790,599 attacks in 2023.
Number of attacks targeting users of Kaspersky mobile solutions, 2021–2023 (download)
Malware kept making its way into Google Play every now and then. For example, in 2023, we discovered that the marketplace contained a malicious application, Trojan.AndroidOS.Agent.wr, camouflaged as a file manager (see the image below).
The app decrypted and executed reverse proxy code, and displayed ads.
Both Google Play and third-party marketplaces were flooded with fake investment apps that relied on social engineering to coax personal data out of users: mostly phone numbers and full names, which were later added to databases used for phone fraud.
Also in 2023, we detected malicious mobile malware threat landscape
