The first mobile malware analytics platform has been released in beta version. The Secure-D Index is a mobile malware information portal that reports top malicious apps identified and blocked by Secure-D around the world.

Secure-D index is openly available to the whole mobile industry, from mobile phone users, mobile network operators, advertisers, the media, app developers, and ad publishers/networks. This level of transparency and ease of access to such information brings a new degree of visibility to the fight against mobile malware.

At its launch, the Index already includes over 1,500 suspicious Android apps with an estimate of 13.5 billion downloads.

 

The threat posed by mobile apps containing hidden malware

Mobile apps reported by the Secure-D Index often contain malware, thus enabling ad fraud.

According to a report by analytics firm techARC, the global ad fraud market was worth $18bn in 2018 with app fraud accounting for 85% of that figure. And every year, the level of sophistication employed by the fraudsters and the monetary loss they’re responsible for continues to increase.

In 2018 alone, Secure-D has processed over 1.8bn mobile transaction requests, has detected and blocked 63,000 malicious apps in 16 countries.

Secure-D identifies and blocks over 170 new malware every day.

However, the threat from ad fraud is still rising. Earlier in 2019, Secure-D identified a significant threat posed by popular filesharing app 4shared. Other Secure-D investigations revealed suspicious background activity on the Weather Forecast app (pre-installed on Alcatel phones) and VidMate (a popular video downloader).

All three apps had been available on Google Play – with a total of 600 million downloads. Across these three apps, Secure-D detected and successfully blocked nearly 250 million suspicious mobile transactions.

 

Everything you need to know about malicious apps in one place

The Secure-D Index is a constantly-updated aggregated list of Android apps which have been identified as suspicious by Secure-D accessible via an intuitive, user-friendly interface. The first thing that users see when they visit the Secure-D Index is a list of the top 20 most active malware from the previous day and register for free to access full data.

These 20 apps represent the current most significant and dangerous threats to mobile phone users, networks, and advertisers right now in the 19 markets that Secure-D operates.

Following their free registration to the service, users have access to all of the information on the Secure-D Index. Users can access the full data set (either global or country specific), see historical data, or search for a specific app and developer.

You can use the Secure-D Index to search for malicious apps which Secure-D has identified by country and by their current availability on Google Play. For each threat identified, the index lists the following useful information:

— No. of downloads

— Its current level of market infection

— Where the app is currently active

— A description of the app (if available)

— Its current Google Play status (is it still available or has it been removed?)

— The name of the developer and a link to their site (if available).

 

Data is currently available for 19 different markets including the USA, Egypt, South Africa, UK, Russia, and India, covering up to 1.3 billion mobile data subscribers. Secure-D is currently planning to improve the service with extra functionality and by adding data from further key markets.

Access the Secure-D index here.