5 million new malware threats in record-breaking Q3
Malware-creators have broken all records when it comes to creating new threats. Over the last three months, PandaLabs, Panda Security’s anti-malware lab, has recorded five million new strains of malware. Most of these were banker Trojans, although adware and spyware have also increased.
This was revealed in the PandaLabs quarterly report detailing cyber-threat activity from July to September. The report can be downloaded here.
“We are currently receiving some 50,000 new examples of malware everyday,” explains Jeremy Matthews, head of Panda’s sub-Saharan operations. “This is a massive increase from the 37,000 samples were detecting daily just a few months ago. There is no reason to believe that the situation will improve in the coming months.”
Q3 saw a 15% rise of computers infected by malware compared to the previous quarter. In more than 37% of cases, the culprits were Trojans, while adware was responsible for 18.68% of all infections. This category in particular has seen significant expansion due to the major proliferation of fake antivirus programmes.
Panda has detected a major growth in the distribution of malware through spam, social networks and rogue search engine optimization techniques, which draw users to spoof Web pages from which malware is downloaded. These methods for propagating malware often use social engineering, exploiting a range of current issues such as swine flu, Independence Day, forest fires or speeches of Barack Obama.
Download the PandaLabs report here.
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