Bangladesh had the second highest percentage of mobile malware attacks in the world in 2018, according to a report coming from global cyber security firm Kaspersky.
Almost 43 percent of mobile users in the country encountered some sort of mobile malware attacks in the country last year, up from 42.76 percent in 2017.
Only Iran witnessed more frequent mobile malware attacks than Bangladesh. The middle-eastern country maintained its leading position in the Kasperksy statistics for the second consecutive year.
The percentage of mobile users encountering malware attacks in Iran, however, decreased significantly from 57.25 percent in 2017 to 44.24 percent last year.
Meanwhile, the Kaspersky report also found that adware programmes from the Ewind family were the most common reason for malware attacks in Bangladesh.
Kaspersky's findings are in line with another global cyber security report that came out last month.
The US-based Comparitech report, conducted on 60 countries around the world, found that 35.91 percent mobile and 19.7 percent computers were affected with malware in Bangladesh last year, which was the highest percentage in the world.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh's neighbour India was at the fourth position in the same Kaspersky statistics, as more than 36 percent of mobile users in the country faced malware attacks.
At the same time, Pakistan was at the seventh spot with 32.62 percent users there facing mobile malware attacks in 2018.
Four African countries - Nigeria, Algeria, Tanzania and Kenya - were also on the top-ten list.
This means that South Asian and African countries, in general, had a notable frequency of mobile malware attacks.
"In 2018, mobile device users faced what could have been the fiercest cyber-criminal onslaught ever seen," said Vi?tor Chebyshev, security expert at Kaspersky Lab.
"Over the course of the year, we observed both new mobile device infection techniques, such as DNS hijacking, along with an increased focus on enhanced distribution schemes, like SMS spam."
"This trend demonstrates the growing need for mobile security solutions to be installed on smart-phones - to protect users from device infection attempts, regardless of the sources," he added.
In order to protect devices, Kasperksy advised users to install mobile applications only from official app stores, such as Google Play on Android devices or App Store on iOS.
It also advised to block the installation of programmes from unknown sources in smart-phone's settings, and not to bypass device restrictions, as this might provide cyber-criminals with limitless capabilities to carry out their attacks.
The international cyber security firm also advised to install system and application updates as soon as they are available, as they patch vulnerabilities and keep devices protected.
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