Trojans – Topmost Threat for Q1 2009, reveals PandaLabs

In its threat report released for the first quarter of 2009, PandaLabs has rated trojans as the biggest threat that accounted for 73% of all the fresh malware developed in Q1 2009, as reported by PR Newswire on April 6, 2009.

A main trend highlighted in the report is the increase in the volume of spyware that surged to 13.15% in Q1 2009 from the 2.5% in Q4 2008, representing an increase of nearly 11% during the period. With this, spyware took the second spot behind Trojans.

Third position goes to Adware at 8.83%, largely due to scareware schemes profitable for the cyber criminals. According to Luis Corrons, Technical Director at PandaLabs, spyware volume has surged radically during the period, possibly aimed at saturating laboratories and thereby, infecting higher number of users, as reported by PR Newswire on April 6, 2009.

Despite the increasing activity of Conficker and Waledac at present, the category of worms has been placed at the fourth spot (3.25%); however, it witnessed an increase over the figures recorded at 2008 end.

The report further provides insight into the global distribution of the active malware, i.e. the malware dynamically running on the PCs worldwide and not the inactive ones awaiting execution. So, according to PandaLabs, the nation with the highest number of infected computers is Taiwan (31.70%).

However, Brazil and Turkey also have considerable volume of malware infected systems and are thus, at second and third positions respectively. In the process, they have left Spain and US behind. In Mexico, the level of active malware has decreased nearly 10% as compared to the 2008 levels and it is currently accounting for 17.95% of all the active malware-infected computer systems.

The report also takes a view of the spam landscape; however, its data doesn't report of any considerable changes in the spam level during Q1 2009.

Additionally, the report highlights the most crucial vulnerabilities detected so far in 2009 and the most interesting malicious codes identified, with Conficker grabbing the main focus as it captured the topmost slot in the concern of security experts all across the world.

Related article: Trojans to Target VoIP in 2006

» SPAMfighter News - 4/22/2009