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Malware worldwide grows 15 percent in September
A rise in malware has caused the number of infected PCs worldwide to increase 15 percent just from August to September, says a report released Tuesday from antivirus vendor Panda Security.
Across the globe, the average number of PCs hit by malware now stands around 59 percent, an all-time high for the year. Among 29 countries tracked, the U.S. ranked ninth with slightly more than 58 percent of its PCs infected. Taiwan hit first place with an infection ratio of 69 percent, while Norway came in lowest with only 39 percent of its PCs attacked by malware.
(Credit:
Panda Security)
The study found that in the U.S., Trojans and Adware were the two most pernicious types of malware, followed by worms and viruses.
(Credit:
Panda Security)
"This is a clear sign that hackers are becoming more and more sophisticated," said PandaLabs Technical Director Luis Corrons. "Cybercriminals have found news ways to spread their creations, frequently exploiting the latest news stories to launch attacks through social networks, videos, and e-mail. The huge amount of Trojans in circulation is due to the spectacular increase in the number of banker Trojans aimed at stealing user data."
The company based its results on data taken from users who scanned their PCs with the free Panda ActiveScan online tool. The results for September were gathered from August 28 to September 28 and compared with the results from July 28 to August 27.
Lance Whitney wears a few different technology hats--journalist, Web developer, and software trainer. He's a contributing editor for Microsoft TechNet Magazine and writes for other computer publications and Web sites. You can follow Lance on Twitter at @lancewhit. Lance is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and he is not an employee of CNET. 
Recent Windows versions aren't the issue. Users that have the belief that 'it can't happen to me' or don't understand are the issue. Updated software (no matter the platform) and good training are the key to safety.
Debian has had their package distribution servers rootkited twice. Package managers are also not limited to just downloading from upstream servers and will install packages saved to your hard drive as well as unsecure repositories. They can be exploited.
That Debian incident is old news. It happened all the way back in 2003 and the attacker didn't actually manage to alter any packages. In fact he only compromised 4 servers and was detected just one day after the intrusion. The fact remains that using a package manager system is far more secure and will protect more users than having the whole Windows user base running wild around the Internet downloading installation files. As for the ability of package manager software to install from additional sources, that's hardly relevant. Only advanced users are going to be using those methods (because additional sources have to be manually configured), and they're more tech savvy than the Windows users who tend to get themselves into trouble. The bottom line is that you'll never see a pie chart like the one above showing such high rates of infection for Linux users relying on package managers. And that's my point.
Yes, much of the software you use on Linux comes through a repository. But what about Nero Linux? What about Adobe Flash? There are package installers for Linux as well.
Nevermind that statistically, all of them are infected Windows machines; it would still be cool to see the version breakdown.
>>>>Probably because most of these are socially engineered attacks, which can affect any version that is compatible with the code. My guess would be that most of these parasites (with the possible exception of some worms) affect 32-bit, NTFS OSes; including Windows 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, 2008, and 7. But you never know; there are still a lot of programs that don't work on Vista, including legitimate ones.
'Nevermind that statistically, all of them are infected Windows machines; it would still be cool to see the version breakdown.'
>>>>I wouldn't venture to say that. Of course the numbers of Linux and OS X Trojans are probably way too small to affect these charts, but still, they're not ALL infected Windows machines.
That said, I would be interested to see versions as well, and it might close the mouths of some anti-MS gremlins around here. Worms affecting Vista/7? Depends on vector and user engagement. Exploits affecting Vista/7? 0.
Yes, yes... but what's the breakdown? If nothing else, it would serve as motivation for folks to upgrade (or at least stop using their Win95 box to get online with).
"I wouldn't venture to say that. Of course the numbers of Linux and OS X Trojans are probably way too small to affect these charts, but still, they're not ALL infected Windows machines."
There may be some in absolute numbers, yes. However, statistically, it's probably not even big enough to make the margin of error (which is why I used the "statistically" qualifier).
While I used a Mac for over four years, I can't justify spending two to three times as much for a system that doesn't do anything different than I one I can get for much less. Apple makes innovative and well designed products, but I look for what represents the best value, not the best technology.
Malware is getting worse and worse all the time. Since systems running MS OS's represent near 90%, that's what the target is. Malware is being used for criminal purpose, hence it's a legal issue. The problem is that there are too few laws addressing this type of crime and there is no global consensus on pursuing online criminals. Also at issue is online anonymity.
This doesn't pass the sniff test -unless they are counting tracking cookies as malware - which would be absurd.
I checked the Panda Security site and they don't really seem to provide any further info as to their data or methodology. Also it's not clear (to me) whether the pie chart percentages represent the total number of *unique types* of software for a given malware type, or the prevalence of the type of malware on infected PCs.
From these graphs I could conclude that 59% of PCs are infected with "something", but 99% of the time that something might be just a "security risk", which might mean that they aren't running a firewall or that they haven't installed the latest Windows patches or something.
Anyone have any pointers to further info on this?
Bring in Microsoft Security Essentials, you can download it for free, and you know you're not contributing any money to the cyber crime eco system.
If only these companies that claim to not be part of the problem were a bit more like Microsoft and offered their security products for free, then the world would be a better place.
The latest round of foolishness at the University is phishing for email ID's and passwords. Quite successful this year. The students have no idea what they're doing. If the phishing/spam schemes we are seeing now as an indication of the state of infection, I will whole heartedly agree with this article. Folks need to wake up. It's gonna get em in the pocket book some day.
RT
www.total-privacy.net.tc
"The company based its results on data taken from users who scanned their PCs with the free Panda ActiveScan online tool"
"Across the globe, the average number of PCs hit by malware now stands around 59 percent, an all-time high for the year."
I know that malware is a problem but please up the journalism just a notch. This is a sensational, hyper-inflated figure based upon results obtained from Panda's ActiveScan (a point buried later in the article).
I have no doubt that 50+% of both PCs and Macs have "infected cookies" (a cookie is not an infected file for crying out loud!).
Also, I have no doubt that the vast majority of people who use Panda's ActiveScan do so because they suspect they already have a virus on the machine and are looking for confirmation.
Therefore, the value of this article in reporting the growth and percentages of malware infection is nil. Great headline. I'm sure it will continue getting lots of traffic. I suppose that is the point when journalism is done this way.
- by SergeM256 September 30, 2009 2:29 PM PDT
- I think numbers are made up. Rate around 50-60% seems a way too much. I wonder how do they collect data? How do they know my computer is not infected and how do they know it even exists? Do they send their own spyware to collect data? Than 60% rate would make sense and title of this article should read "60% of computers infected by our spyware also have other malware". Do they count users that click on a banner "Free PC scan"? In this case 60% rate would make sense and title should read "60% users that click on every banner/pop-up have their computers infected".
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