As phones are getting smarter, they are also becoming more vulnerable. Mobile threats that have existed for years are becoming more common, and a new report shows that Android phones are among those most at risk. Russian firm Kaspersky Lab, in its monthly malware statistics, reported that threats designed for Android represent approximately 24% of the overall number of detected threats targeting mobile platforms.

The distribution of malicious programs targeting mobile platforms, by operating system, shows that in August 55.68% of the attacks were focused on J2ME (a Java platform designed for embedded systems), followed by Android (24.25%) and Symbian (13.86%). Windows Mobile attacks counted 3.09%, iOS reported 0.46% and BlackBerry 0.04%.

Slovakian security company Eset reported that in September new variants of cyber threats to mobile devices were discovered. In its monthly ranking, the company reported the emergence of the latest version of the botnet agent (malicious software) called “SpyEye in the Mobile”. It is considered one of the oldest and largest botnets in the world for smartphones and pocket PCs, and in its latest version SpyEye focuses on Android systems.

Its criminal actions represent the theft of more than US $3 million worldwide. And now, Eset detected a change of SpyEye for phones that run on Symbian, Blackberry and Android.

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