2016 saw a big increase in financial phishing and banking malware, with crooks particularly targeting Android users, according to cybersecurity specialist Kaspersky Lab.

Last year, financial phishing increased in both volume and professionalism, says Kaspersky, which recorded an all-time high in the number of incidents it caught on Windows-based machines.

Meanwhile, following two years of falling incidents, in 2016 the number of users attacked with malware targeting financial data started increasing again - up 30.6% to more than a million. Just over 17% of those attacked with banking malware were corporate users, while victims were seen most often in Russia, Germany, Japan, India, Vietnam and the US.

Zbot remained the most widespread banking malware family (44.1% of attacked users) but in 2016 it was actively challenged by the Gozi family (17.2%).

From mid-2016 Kaspersky says it discovered that the number of attacked Android users was increasing at an exponential rate, from just 3,967 in January to around 75,000 in October.

The number of users that encountered Android malware during the year increased 430% to reach 305,000 worldwide, thanks in large part to two malware families, Asacub and Svpeng, which mainly affected people in Russia.