Kenyans are increasingly at the risk of losing their cash through mobile transactions because of an increase in mobile malware attacks.

According to the Communication Authority of Kenya's (CA) second quarter (2018/2019) statistic report for the period October to December 2018, fraudsters are targeting mobile phone users through fake mobile phone applications.

"The report covering October-December 2018 shows a dramatic spike in malware attacks, targeting mobile devices and which has seen unsuspecting Kenyans defrauded in online platforms," the report stated.

"In particular, there was a rise in cases of malware and the sale of stolen data and credentials including personal data and credit card information," it added.

Data from the National KE-CIRT/CC shows that there were 10.2 million attacks of which 9 million were malware attacks, compared to 1.8 million cyber attacks reported during the last quarter.

Mobile commerce continues to draw threats as more people embrace mobile money payments, mobile money transfers and mobile banking.

The report said: "There were 586.9 million mobile commerce transactions valued at KSh.1.8 trillion person-to-person (P2P) transfers amounted to KSh.731.9 billion."

At the same time, the mobile internet subscriptions grew from 41,854,706 to 45,333,942 representing an 8.3% growth, underlining the appetite for mobile internet in the country.

"Safaricom PLC registered the highest market share for mobile data subscriptions at 69.5 percent whereas Airtel Network Limited reported 22.4 percent market share. Further, Telkom Kenya 19 Limited, Finserve Africa Limited and Mobile Pay Limited reported market shares of 7.4, 0.4 and 0.2 percent respectively," the report added.