For more than six years, Tibor Éliás has been disassembling Android malware. As a malware analyst, he has witnessed how mobile threats have evolved and spread over the last few years.

“Not only the number of samples in the wild has increased, but also the variety,” says Tibor Éliás: “The first malware programs that sent masses of premium SMS for fast money were followed by classic Trojans and key loggers. In the meantime, we are also dealing with ransomware, banking trojans, cryptomers, adware, stalkerware and PUAs”.

After Windows, Android is the most popular target of cybercriminals. The advantages are obvious: our smartphones now contain just as valuable data, but are less secured – or not secured at all. It pays off to invest in new attack methods.

“A good malware analyst keeps up with the rapid developments and always finds new ways to fend off attacks.”

The strong detection rates of the IKARUS scan.engine are no coincidence and are not only due to the highly developed technology: It also contains a lot of ambition, know-how and creativity of the analysts.

Reverse engineering is a large and exciting part of the virus laboratory’s everyday work but by far not all.

One exciting task was to unlock a smartphone infected with a new type of ransomware that targeted and misused banking apps. To do this, we had to develop new software, find security gaps and crack the encryption. The task resembled a huge puzzle that had to be put together in the right order. It was exciting until the end”.

Malware comes and goes – success stories like this one will be remembered.