Nigeria targeted as over 200 malicious apps on Google Play Store threaten users—Report  

According to the report, Nigeria is one of the top 10 countries in the world targeted by these mobile malware attackers.

Other top targets include India, the US, Canada, South Africa, The Netherlands, Mexico, Brazil, Singapore, and the Philippines.

The report noted that as mobile devices have become the primary tool for online activity, with 96.5% of internet users accessing the web through their phones, cyber threats on mobile platforms have surged.

The Zscaler report, based on 20 million blocked malicious transactions, indicates a 29% rise in banking malware attacks over the past year, while mobile spyware incidents spiked by a staggering 111%.

The report attributed this sharp increase to the profitability of cyberattacks, with many cybercriminals now capable of bypassing multi-factor authentication (MFA).

“Even apps from official stores like the Google Play Store have been compromised. Over 200 malicious apps, which collectively received nearly eight million downloads, were uploaded to the platform. Google confirmed that these apps have been removed following their identification,” the report stated.

Among the apps, the report indicated that the most prevalent malware family was Joker, which accounted for 38% of the identified apps.

“Trojans continue to dominate the Android threat landscape, accounting for 43% of all malicious payloads. Banking malware, in particular, heavily relies on trojans, with Zscaler blocking 3.6 million threats associated with these types of attacks,” it added.

However, the researchers also noted a recent decline in Android malware activity. By May 2024, the number of blocked malicious transactions had dropped to one-third of the figures recorded in June 2023.

Despite this, Zscaler still recorded an average of 1.7 million Android malware blocks per month over the past year, based on the analysis of more than 20 million threat-related mobile transactions.