Dive Brief:

• Mobile device infections rose 96% in the first half of 2016, according to Nokia’s new malware report.
• Smartphone infections nearly doubled between January and July 2016 compared to the last half of 2015.
• The malware infection rate hit a record high in April, when one out of every 120 smartphones had some sort of malware infection.

Dive Insight:

With more employees using their personal smartphones for work, there may be little preventing mobile phone-based malware from creeping into enterprise networks.

Android devices were the most targeted mobile platform, representing 74% of all mobile malware infections, according to Nokia. The number of infected Android apps in Nokia's malware database went from 5.1 million in December 2015 to 8.9 million in July 2016.

"Today attackers are targeting a broader range of applications and platforms, including popular mobile games and new IoT devices, and developing more sophisticated and destructive forms of malware," said Kevin McNamee, head of the Nokia Threat Intelligence Lab.

The top three mobile malware threats were Uapush.A, Kasandra.B and SMSTracker. Those three types of malware alone accounted for 47% of all infections, according to the study.