‘1.8m detections of malware recorded in Jordan in 12 months’

AMMAN — Jordan ranks ninth among Middle East countries in terms of the level of malware threats, according to figures by Trend Micro Incorporated.

Jordan reported about 1.8 million detections of malware from June 2013 to May 2014, according to Trend Micro’s Smart Protection Network Feedback.

The report, e-mailed to The Jordan Times on Tuesday, showed that in terms of total spam volume, the Kingdom ranked seventh in the Middle East, while Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait ranked as the top three countries in receiving spam.

According to the statistics, Saudi Arabia and the UAE reported the highest level of malware threats in the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia counted 11.01 million instances, while the UAE registered 10.26 million instances, from June 2013 to May 2014, according to Trend Micro Incorporated, a company specialised in cloud computing security and Internet content security.

“Among the most alarming enterprise security threats are data breaches, targeted attacks, and malicious and high-risk applications,” Ihab Moawad, the company’s vice president for the Mediterranean, Middle East and Africa, said in a statement sent to The Jordan Times.

“Middle East enterprises must deploy mobile security solutions, mobile usage guidelines, threat information and education for safe and secure workplaces,” Moawad noted.

Trend Micro warned that the types of global mobile malware will grow from 2 million in the first half of 2014 to a record 3 million in the second half of this year.

Growth in mobile malware threats, particularly in the Middle East, is being led by the increasing “bring your own device” (BYOD) trend, with employees bringing their own smartphones, tablets and laptops to the workplace, Moawad said.

Half of employers worldwide will require employees to supply their own devices by 2017, according to Gartner Inc. In the Middle East and Africa, the BYOD market is set to grow by 22.8 per cent per year from $11 billion in 2013 to $38 billion by 2019, according to a report from MicroMarket Monitor.

Andrea Petti, VP verticals and indirect channel MEA at Ericsson, said companies need to ensure that the usage of BYOD at workplace is safe.

“The use of BYOD is already happening in Jordan and the rest of the Middle East. Companies need to pay attention to the issue of security to prevent any possible breaches,” Petti told The Jordan Times recently.

“It will be difficult to prevent BYOD. It makes work more flexible and efficient and what is needed is to make it secure,” he said. 

Mobile and Internet penetration is on the rise in Jordan, according to official figures, with the former reaching 146 per cent at the end of the first half of 2014, with 10.691 million subscriptions, while Internet penetration stood 73 per cent by the end of June this year, with 5.4 million users, according to the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission.