PandaLabs Finds Trojan Programs Topping the 2007 Cyber Threat List

ActiveScan, the online scanner of Panda Security, after scanning computers in 2007 found that trojans accounted for 25.83% of all infections in that year. Also, such trojans comprised of 77.40% of the freshly arriving malware in 2007. And comparing with 2006, they accounted for only 50% of the freshly malware that year.

According to PandaLabs, new pieces of trojans have been increasing five times at every interval of six months. During December 2007, trojans were responsible for 25.92% of all infections that ActiveScan detected.

Meanwhile, Technical Director, Luis Corrons, at PandaLabs warns that cyber criminals are increasingly using trojans as they ideally exploit infections for financial gains as their prime motive on the Web. Techtree published this in news on January 4, 2008.

Following Trojans, adware accounted for 25.39% of total infections in 2007, revealed ActiveScan. And they comprised of 11.20% of freshly appearing malicious programs in that year.

ActiveScan further revealed that there were 7.99% of infections due to worms in 2007. The worms were also responsible for 7.21% of freshly created malware in 2007. When compared to 2006, they comprised of 23.21% of freshly created malware in that year.

Among the key families of malware in 2007, the Downloader Trojan group was the key protagonist. Such trojans are designed to download other malware onto targeted computers. Specifically the Downloader.MDW Trojan was the top most malware active during the second half of 2007.

In addition, Hupigon, a backdoor Trojan that offers control of infected computers from afar along with the Nabload Banker and the Banbra banker Trojans, stood out as other Trojan families in 2007.

Statistics collected from the 'Infected or Not' website suggest that the number of systems infected with virulent malware increased dramatically. The figure jumped from 10% in January 2007 to reach a peak of 19.58% in July 2007 after which it remained stable at around 18% for the whole year.

Meanwhile, in Mexico, which had the maximum number of infected computers in the world, there were 26.39% of active malware-installed computers. Following it was Taiwan that stood second with 25.41% and France came third with 24.08% of infected computers.

Related article: PandaLabs Report Discusses Movie Trojan and Other Worms

» SPAMfighter News - 1/16/2008