Microsoft Emphasizes on Increasing Malware Threat Landscape in Its Report

Microsoft in its latest security intelligence report says that malware was the most commonly detected e-threat in the second half of the last year (2009).

The company found that of total threats detected on compromised systems in the second half of 2009, malware contributed 69.9%, up from the level of 67.1% in the first half of the same year. However, a drop in the number of malware-infected PCs was noticed in the second half of 2009, which dipped down from 4.9 to 4.1 in every 1000 PCs.

The software giant also found that eight in every 1000 PCs scanned in the US during the second half of 2009 were found infected with malware.

The report further says that most of the attacks were detected on older operating systems, with Windows XP reporting usually higher infection rates than either Windows Vista or Windows 7. Out of all the operating systems developed by Microsoft, the 64-bit versions of Windows Vista SP2 and Windows 7 RTM recorded the lowest number of PCs sanitized for every 1,000 executions of Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT), resulting in an average of 1.4 computers for each. On the other hand, with 21.7 computers sanitized per 1,000 executions, Windows XP SP 1 witnessed the most.

Apart from this, the biggest threat before domain computers is worms, accounting for nearly 32% of the top ten threats detected, as per the Microsoft report. On the contrary, worms accounted for just 15% of threats detected for non-domain systems.

The report claims that removable storage volumes and unsecured file shares facilitate the worms to spread in the most effective way. It is noteworthy that both of these facilitators are usually a commonplace in enterprises and less prevalent in home environment. Win32/Conficker is the most prominent of those worms which uses several ways to spread that functions more effectively in a typical network environment of an enterprise than the public Internet.

Talking on the findings of the report, Cliff Evans, privacy and security head at Microsoft UK, stated that their Security Intelligence Report Volume 8 gives strong proof that cybercriminals are growing in sophistication and are drafting online threats for developing, updating and maintaining exploit kits which are sold to others for deployment, as per the news published by V3.co.uk on April 26, 2010. He further added that malware authors are continuously improving their malicious products.

Related article: Microsoft Patches Live OneCare to Tackle Quarantined E-Mails

» SPAMfighter News - 5/7/2010