Despite that finding, our data was not extensive enough to prove just how prevalent threats were in the U.S. specifically, but recent research has shown that malicious within text continue to be the biggest concern for mobile device users in the U.S. with 4 in 10 American users likely to click on an unsafe link.

Although Androids topped the list of mobile malware targets, there are still major regional differences in mobile malware prevalence. For instance, "Notcompatible" has a much higher infection rate in Latin America, while "SMSPACEM" and "Netisend" are much more prevalent in the Asia Pacific regions.

These regional differences may be explained by end users' personal networks. Like a cold or virus in the real world, once someone in a community gets infected with a mobile malware, they are more likely to spread it to others in that community -- instead of a sneeze, it is through SMS. As the mobile malware area is less mature than its fixed counterpart, it may take more time for mobile threats to "jump" networks; this will change soon, though, as malware threats get more sophisticated.

Mobile malware writers are leveraging many of the same techniques (e.g., spreading through end users' contact lists) and technical capabilities (e.g., ) to spread and make money they've used on the Fixed side for years. As the proliferation of continues and the mobile ad market matures, the incentive of higher profit possibilities will encourage malware writers to write more sophisticated malware.

With multiple mobile operating systems and a vast array of devices, device-based anti-malware software alone isn't a scalable solution to the problem. The DNS enables a network-based approach for preventing malware that works regardless of what type of device is infected.