Malware Observed a Growth of Over 200% during 2008

As per the recent Internet Security Threat Report by Symantec, 2008 witnessed another overwhelming increase of around 200% in malevolent software. The security company registered roughly 1.6 Million fresh threats in 2008.

The report also highlights that Trojan programs were the most widespread malware, responsible for 66% of the leading 50 prospective infections in EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), as hackers looked for stealing monetary and other information to trade online.

Also, 78% of private details threats exported the data of users in 2008 and 76% used a keystroke logging module to steal details like online banking account credentials.

Nevertheless, the report discovers, spam mails, i.e. unwanted mails sent by firms attacking customers, decreased by 20% in the previous year. Vice President of Symantec, Alfred Huger, said that this was chiefly because of the closure of two leading malware hosting firms, charged of being accountable for spam attacks, during 2008, as reported by The Wall Street Journal on April 14, 2009.

Symantec's security experts have also been observing a considerable propagation of Internet worms as well as other malevolent activity in developing economies, where rise in the use of computers has been escorted by extensive use of pirated software, which are deficient of the sufficient security patch.

However, the Symantec report informs that the nature of communication over the Internet indicates that these threats exist in the whole world. This means that there is a need of consistent assistance among law enforcement, security experts, software creators and others to address the problem.

Chief Scientist at Symantec, Guy Bunker, stated that while nearly all firms are well protected at the laptop or desktop level, they need to be well- informed about the threats as well, as per the reports by Vnunet on April 14, 2009.

As per the security experts, 2008 will be remembered in history as the malicious threat year. But, there are some positive points as well. Guy said that the industry had attained the summit in the manner malware is found. He further added that there has been an enormous rise in the quantity of malware, but when it is constructed from the similar building blocks it makes it fairly easy to be detected.

Related article: Malware Authors Turn More Insidious

» SPAMfighter News - 4/20/2009