Mobile malware in the Android ecosystem has grown by over 40 percent in the past few months, researchers say.

A new report issued by Trend Micro (.pdf) says that high-risk, malicious app rates on the Google Android operating system rose to 718,000 at the end of the second quarter in comparison to 509,000 in the first quarter of this year.

The number of malicious Android apps in circulation surged by over 350,000 in this time period — which originally took three years to reach when Google’s Android operating system became established. read more