A new report from cybersecurity company Zscaler has revealed that hundreds of malicious Android apps were downloaded from Google Play more than 40 million times between June 2024 and May 2025.
The report also found that mobile malware attacks have increased by 67 percent compared to last year, with spyware and banking trojans becoming the most common threats targeting Android users.
According to Zscaler, cybercriminals are moving away from traditional credit card fraud and now focusing on mobile payment systems. They are using phishing, smishing, SIM-swapping, and fake payment scams to steal money and personal data. This shift is largely because of improved card security technologies like chip-and-PIN and the growing popularity of mobile payments. To carry out these scams, hackers are spreading malicious apps and phishing trojans that can steal banking details and login credentials from infected devices.
The report shows that banking malware has continued to rise, reaching 4.89 million malicious transactions in 2025. Although the number of attacks increased, the growth rate slowed to just 3 percent this year, down from 29 percent last year. Zscaler also found 239 dangerous apps on Google Play during this period, up from 200 last year, with a total of around 42 million downloads.
Adware has now become the biggest threat in the Android ecosystem, making up nearly 69 percent of all detections, almost double the amount seen last year. The infamous Joker malware, which was the top threat last year, has now dropped to second place with 23 percent of detections. Spyware infections also saw a massive increase of 220 percent, with malware families like SpyNote, SpyLoan, and BadBazaar being used for spying, blackmail, and identity theft.
Zscaler’s data shows that India, the United States, and Canada were the most affected countries, together accounting for 55 percent of all attacks. There was also a sharp rise in malware activity in Italy and Israel, where the number of attacks increased by up to 4000 percent compared to the previous year.
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