Over 1.2 million mobile users witnessed malware attacks in 2017: Kaspersky Lab

In 2017, 25.4% of smartphone users who encountered malware were attacked by malicious programmes that used adult content to lure them into installing infected apps on their devices, a report said on Wednesday.

According to the findings by Russia-based Kaspersky Lab, over 1.2 million mobile users witnessed a malware attack in 2017.

The security giant said the most active use of porn topics is in the mobile threat landscape. During the course of the research, Kaspersky Lab specialists identified 23 families of malware that use adult content to hide their real functionality.

"Although we cannot say that these mobile applications are technically very different to those that do not use adult content in their activities, there are a few specifics when it comes to attacks with porn-powered malicious applications," Roman Unuchek, Security Expert at Kaspersky Lab, said in a statement.

"A victim who has been compromised with an adult content-enabled malicious programme might think twice before reporting the incident, simply because they were trying to find porn content. This is one of the reasons why we see so many attacks with this malware," Unuchek added.

The research showed that when downloading an unknown porn application, users are at greatest risk of being infected with so-called clickers.

Upon infection, this malware starts to click through ad-links or try to subscribe the user to a subscription in order to drain their pre-paid mobile credit.

Porn-themed malware are followed by Banking Trojans disguised as porn video players, and rooting malware that often comes in the form of legitimate applications for known porn websites.