AV-Test: Test Report: Anti-Malware solutions for Android

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March, 15th 2012

The Smartphone market grew enormously over the last five years and the mobile malware evolved rapidly, too. Right now there are over 450.000 apps in the Android market, where as there were less than 100.000 in July 20101. This makes it the fastest growing software market overall. With the rise of new apps, the number of malware increases as well. Figure 1 shows the growth of the AV-TEST Android malware collection. The increasing curve is similar to what we've seen for PC malware in the last years. The threats for Android include Phishing- and Banking-Trojans, Spyware, Bots, Root Exploits, SMS Fraud, Premium Dialers and Fake Installers. There have also been reports about Download-Trojans – apps that download their malicious code after installation – which means that these apps can't be easily detected by Google's Bouncer technology during publication in the Google Android Market. Our collection used for this test contains more than 20 different Android malware families, which cover each of the previously named threats.

In November 2011 we’ve revealed that many Antivirus apps, which are available for free in Google's Android Market, don't provide a sufficient malware protection for your Android mobile. This time we are trying to cover the good and the bad and started reviewing as many Android Anti-Malware apps as we could find, regardless whether an app requires a specific Android version or device. These apps include free and non-free programs, intended for personal use. This report aims to give an impression of the malware detection rates. As an independent test institute, we aren't in the position to recommend a specific product, but you can certainly use our report to find your personal favorite. However please bear in mind, that malware may not the only or the most important threat to your device. Even if a product scores poorly in malware detection it may have other convenient features, such as remote lock and wipe, backup and phone locating, that make it useful for your purposes. It is also possible to run two or more security apps on your device at the same time, using only the best features of the single apps.

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