PandaLabs - Malware Infected PCs Rose 15% in Sep 09

Antivirus vendor 'Panda Security' released its e-threat report on September 29, 2009 telling that the number of infected computers surged 15% globally in September 2009 from August 2009 on account of rise in the statistics of malware.

The average number of computers infected globally by malware stood at around 59%, highest in the whole year of 2009. Among the countries tracked, the US was placed on ninth position, with over 58% of its computers infected. Taiwan occupied the first place by registering infection ratio of 69%, whereas Norway stood at the last place with mere 39% of its computers had malware infection.

Panda's study disclosed that computers in the US were compromised by the most dangerous malware strains. According to the report, Adware and trojans were two leading pernicious kinds of malware followed by viruses and worms.

Luis Corrons, Technical Director of PandaLabs, said that when users perceived that there was no real danger at the moment, they actually developed a false notion of security. In fact, they hardly paid attention to symptoms of infection on their computers, as reported by PRNEWSWIRE on September 29, 2009.

Corrons further explained that these statistics were reflection of sophistication level achieved by hackers who had found new methods to propagate their malicious creations, like frequently swaying people attention towards catchy news stories, attacks through videos, social networks and e-mail. The steep rise in trojans circulation was a result of impressive growth in the number of banker trojans crafted especially to pilfer user data.

Giving more details of web-delivered malware, PandaLabs researchers said that an average of 37,000 new samples were detected and processed everyday.

Around 52% of detected malware are reconfigured with in twenty four hours of their release so that they escape from signature-based scanners, said the report. Moreover, people whose systems are infected in the initial twenty four hours of the malware will have infection actively functioning.

The most disturbing aspect of these statistics is not the challenge pose to the security experts but the high success rate of web-delivered malware, said researchers.

Related article: PandaLabs Report Discusses Movie Trojan and Other Worms

» SPAMfighter News - 10/20/2009