India tops list of global malware attacks: Zscaler report

India is now on top of the list for mobile malware attacks globally, according to a recent report by cybersecurity firm Zscaler.

India now accounts for 28% of total mobile malware attacks worldwide, surpassing the United States (27.3%) and Canada (15.9%), the Zscaler ThreatLabz 2024 Mobile, IoT, and OT Threat Report revealed.

The report analysed a dataset from June 2023 to May 2024 that included more than 20 billion threat-related mobile transactions and associated cyber threats.


A blog by Zscaler said their research team tracked a rise in financially motivated mobile attacks that showed a 111% growth in spyware and 29% growth in banking malware.

ET had reported in October that within the first five months of 2024, some 9.5 lakh complaints were registered with the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal, averaging one every 14 seconds.

One of the most recent cases in India was that of fake wedding cards. In their latest trick, scammers send pdf documents of wedding cards on WhatsApp, which when opened downloads malware on the recipient's device.

Earlier this year, in the month of August, nearly 300 small Indian banks were forced to go offline due to a ransomware attack. One-fifth of the nearly 1,500 cooperative and rural regional banks in the country were affected.

BSNL also faced two cyberattacks within a span of six months, from December 2023 to June 2024, where the state-owned telecom operator suffered a data breach of international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) numbers, SIM card details, home location register data and critical security keys.

In 2022, AIIMS Delhi was under attack for more than 15 days, which the then minister of state for electronics and information technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, called “a conspiracy and planned by forces.”

The cyber attacks also have become more sophisticated, Zscaler said in its blog post, adding that enterprises should adopt a zero-trust approach that mitigates cyber threats and improves their security posture.