PCs Contaminated with Malware on an Increase within India, Reports Microsoft

According to the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report volume 11, India has witnessed a rise in contaminations from viruses and other malware during H1-2011 (January-June 2011) as opposed to the otherwise overall enhanced security situation globally, thus published IIFL dated October 11, 2011.

Moreover, as indicated in the report, malevolent codes/software contaminated a larger number of Indian PCs during April-June 2011 compared to January-March 2011, albeit the security situation worldwide became better between the 3-months periods.

The report as well disclosed that 'bots' continued to thrive in India thus making the country's contribution to the global amount of 'spambots' rise between the 3-months periods.

When April-June 2011 ended, infections from worms and Trojans accounted for 38.3% and 33.6% respectively of all detections, making the two types of malware most common, while Adware somewhat moderate. Viruses too accounted for 25% of the total contaminations, though spyware contaminations were pretty less as globally. Furthermore, India harbored 11.003% of the entire Internet Protocol addresses associated with spambots during Q2-2011, a rise of 10.895% since Q1-2011.

Worldwide, 99% of the total assaults over the identical time-span spread malicious software via known methods such as un-patched security flaws and social engineering tricks.

Chief Security Officer Sanjay Bahl of the India division of Microsoft Corp. stated that as per the report, within India, the aggregate count of PCs sanitized for every 1,000 was 15.9% during Q2-2011 as opposed to 15.2% during Q1-2011, highlighting growing contamination rates during April-June 2011. This could be attributed to numerous causes like non-application of updates and patches on a regular basis; end-users not utilizing authentic software, alternatively efficient anti-virus and strong passwords; and security practices remaining unknown in general, the Officer analyzed. BusinessLine published this on October 11, 2011.

Meanwhile, several methods exist through which malware attacks are spread, like use of "AutoRun USB" wherein when USB storage tools quickly substitute optical media it causes malware to disseminate via the Windows AutoRun utility for such tools.

Additionally, "malevolent websites" works as an extremely common method for tracing users' activities. Thus, hackers execute phishing assaults as also spread malware through malevolent sites that look wholly genuine.

Related article: PC-Virus of 2005 Threatening Japanese Bank Accountholders, Warns Symantec

» SPAMfighter News - 10/20/2011