Less than half of Android devices have an antivirus installed

Less than half of Android devices have an antivirus installed

This is confirmed by a study by the National Observatory of Telecommunications and the Information Society

   Less than half of users of mobile devices with an Android operating system have antivirus software installed, despite the fact that almost 74% say they count, according to a study prepared by the National Observatory of Telecommunications and the Information Society (Ontsi) , which is managed by the public entity Red.es.

The 'Study on Cybersecurity and Trust in Spanish households' corresponding to the second half of 2016 points out that the main security measures declared by users of mobile devices are antivirus software (73.7%), the use of unlocking systems secure by PIN or pattern (71.2%) and automatic device lock after inactivity period (62.6%).

  However, the ONTSI has verified that Internet users declare to use more security measures in their mobile devices than they actually use, and only 49.1% of the analyzed devices have antivirus and only 30.2% in regarding the PIN, pattern, or other secure unlocking system.

On the other hand, the report also notes from the surveys carried out on Spanish households that there is a "downward trend" in the use of security measures in personal computers at the end of 2016 compared to the data of the first semester of 2016.

Regarding the two most used automation security measures, 72% say they use antivirus programs and 55.5% update the operating system, compared to 74.3% and 58.5% of the first semester, respectively. On the other hand, the use of firebreaks decreases from 40.6% to 39.6%.

In addition, it notes that a similar trend is seen in non-automatable or active security measures, where the use of the two most common passwords and elimination of temporary files and cookies, stands at the end of 2016 at 55.7% and 43 , 6%, compared to 59.1% and 48.5% in the first semester.

However, when contrasting the real data with the one declared by the users it is observed that, although less than 40% of the Internet users surveyed declare to use firewall software in their computers, in fact this type of programs is found in 93.1% of those analyzed For antivirus programs, the real and declared data are similar, 77% versus 72%, respectively.

The study also shows that 51.5% of Wi-Fi networks use WPA and WPA2 standards, while 22.5% are unsafe, since 7.6% use WEP encryption, which is obsolete and easily vulnerable; 5.4% of users leave their Wi-Fi wireless network unprotected and 9.5% do not know their protection status.

Good behavior habits

On the other hand, the report points out that users of banking and / or commerce services through the internet maintain good behavior habits in general, closing the session at the end of the operation (91.6%), periodically monitoring the movements of the online bank account (90.8%) or avoiding the use of public or shared equipment (87.1%), among others. In contrast, the prepaid card or purse is the least used measure among these users (38.5%).

The Ontsi affirms that the use of these prudent security habits minimizes the risk of consummation of an attempted fraud. In this sense, it stands out that around 95% of the users with good habits did not suffer economic damage.

Likewise, it also points out that 64% of social network users configure their profile so that it is only accessible by their friends and contacts. However, 29% expose the data published in their profile to third parties and / or strangers, and even 6.9% of those consulted declare that they do not know the level of privacy of their profile.

On the other hand, 39.2% of users that connect to a public Wi-Fi wireless network do so whenever they need it and in any place, exposing the confidentiality and integrity of their data.

The study also shows that 64.2% of users surveyed said they had suffered a security incident, the most frequent being the reception of unsolicited emails -spam- (86.4%) and computer viruses or other malicious codes (24.9%).

As for the actual data detected, it is observed that 63.9% of the computers analyzed had a virus and in most cases (53.7%) the user had not noticed. Likewise, in 17.4% of the Android devices scanned, malware was detected and a large part of its users did not detect it (14.6%).