Trend Micro Report Confirms Arrival Of Post-PC Threat Era

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 25 (Bernama) -- Cybercriminals have moved beyond the personal computer (PC), targeting Android, social media and even the Mac OS X with new attacks. Trend Micro Incorporated, a global cloud security leader, highlighted this fact in its just released 2012 Annual Roundup and Mobile Security report. In a statement, Trend Micro also said the report showed that most of its predictions for 2012 had come true, and encapsulated it as the year where threats launched the beginning of the "Post-PC" Era. "Threats have now escalated past the desktop environment," it added. It said according to the report, 2012 ended with 350,000 threats for Android. "Malware growth reached 14 to 3 for Android versus the PC. It only took the Android one year to achieve the PC volume of malware threats achieved within fourteen years," it added. Trend Micro said that English and Russian led among the top 10 spam languages, with India showing the way for the Top 10 spam - sending countries. Meanwhile, the 2012 Mobile Threat and Security Roundup report revealed that Android Malware accomplished in three years, what PC threats took 14 years to do. "What is also concerning is that only 20 per cent of Android device owners use a security app. "This is not a risk worth taking, as by year-end 2012, there were 350,000 threats facing this relatively new mobile platform. Android threats will increase to one million in 2013," it said. Chief Technology Officer of Trend Micro, Raimund Genes said the hope that new open source software (OSs) would make the world a safer place, didn't work out. "This was shown to be clearly the case in 2012. "The post-PC malware era is here and it’s already looking to be a more dangerous one with higher stakes," he added. -- BERNAMA