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A malicious software called Dendroid has been doing the rounds of the digital space in India and affects the Android-based mobile devices, says Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In). If the organization is to be believed, the malware can be extremely dangerous as it allows the attacker to remotely control the affected phone. The warning should be taken seriously considering that a huge number of devices in India are based on the Android platform. These phones form about 90 percent of the total mobile devices in the country. According to CERT-In, this toolkit basically Trojanizes applications and creates malware by altering the required permissions using Dendroid RAT.

In 2013 Android grew to a very large number: 87%. This was its share of the global smartphone market. It also grew to an even larger one: 97%. This was Android’s share of global mobile malware.Unless you’ve had your head under a rock you’ll have noticed the latter is fast becoming the weapon of choice for Google’s rivals in attempting to curtail the former. On paper it should. Android malware rose from 238 threats in 2012 to 804 new threats in 2013. What was the combined total of new threats for Apple  iOS, BlackBerry OS and Microsoft Windows Phone in that time? Zero. The remaining 3% came from Nokia ’s axed Symbian platform. All of which poses a very valid question: how do you stay safe on Android? Perhaps surprisingly the answer is: easily. Why? Because here’s the part Google’s rivals don’t want you to know: the figures are misleading. Let’s be clear. From a statistical viewpoint researcher and security specialist F-Secure got them right. Android does account for 97...