Rising Spam and Infected PCs – A Big Concern for the Middle East

According to Trend Micro, a security vendor, the aggregate of infected computers is expected to rise dramatically in 2009 all over the world, with many in the Middle East where individuals and businesses overlook scanning their computers as a regular practice.

This forecast of Trend Micro appears to be turning true, as in January 2009 alone, the security firm has reported over 350,000 malware-infected PCs in the Middle East.

Furthermore, the Middle East generates 3.56% of worldwide spam, with UAE accounting for the biggest count in the region and Saudi Arabia following close on the heels.

Besides, with over 115 Billion spam mails being produced around the world every day, the Web is now the chief medium of threat-infection for the modern-day attack. And in this environment of large-scale infection, Saudi Arabia has witnessed over 288,134 infected PCs while the figure stands at 71,408 in the UAE, as per the reports of Trend Micro.

The high level of spam in this part of the world is attributed to the massive use of computers here; thereby, exposing them to spam and computer viruses.

According to Samir Kirouani, Technical Manager for Trend Micro in the Middle East and Africa, people's reliance on the Web increases their vulnerability, with most not even being aware that their systems are being compromised, as reported by Menafn.com published on February 9, 2009.

In the meantime, with the above metnioned statistics from Trend Micro, Sheik Abideen, Head of Business Development at a Dubai-based IT security services company Paramount Computer Systems said that the greatest impact was on government organizations and banks that were being troubled with Trojans. Since these institutions store a great deal of credit card data along with other crucial information, many of their applications get exposed to Trojan horses, reports zawya.com on February 11, 2009.

Sheik Abideen told that nobody was authoring viruses anymore; now it was trojans that were being increasingly used to attack financial organizations. He further explained that trojans are small malicious programs residing on machines that can be activated as and when required.

Thus, in order to halt the virus attacks, Kirouani recommended users to scan their PCs regularly.

Related article: Rising Number of Online Shoppers could Lure Fraudsters this Holiday

» SPAMfighter News - 2/25/2009