Trend Micro warns of growing threats to Android devices

A "proliferation" of Android-based malicious apps and cloud computing data breaches has reached a scale never seen before said Trend Micro.

The security firm's second quarter 2011 Threat Round-up on the most dangerous threats and trends facing computing security also found that social-networking scams are becoming even more sophisticated. 

Raimund Genes, Trend Micro's chief technology officer said: "At the rate cybercriminals are launching attacks, targeted or not, there's just no telling how many more companies and users will succumb to the dangers these pose before the year ends."

Users of third-party tools such as Adobe Flash Player, Reader, and Acrobat remained at risk as hackers continued to exploit critical vulnerabilities.

Also, thanks to the increasing popularity of the Android operating system, especially for smartphones, criminals launched a number of attacks. This malicious software poses as either fake apps or updates to trick the user into downloading them. Trend Micro said this trend is likely to continue.

Facebook users are also vulnerable targets. Attacks arriving as spammed malicious links via various tools. The report added that all these attacks had led to data theft that "even the site's recent addition of security features to minimise the dangers" had not helped.