75 Million New Malware Samples Released

The new quarterly report from McAfee revealed that there were more that 75 million new malware samples released in 2011. Last quarter of 2011 was profitable for Android malware developers, this segment is continuing to grow, most popular threat used infecting mobile users were sms sending Trojans. When infected with such trojan your mobile device will automatically send out sms messages to a costly subscription services which are operated by Internet criminals. Other prevailing threats used for Android devices where rogue rooting apps.

The malware segment has continued to decline comparing to the year 2010, while there are still more than 75 million new malware samples detected. The last quarter of year 2011 has shown a growth of TDSS family root-kits, these infections are used in distribution of other computer threats, and are designed to stay stealth on an infected computer for a long period of time.

Fake antivirus segment also saw a decline comparing to a third quarter, but rogue antivirus programs are still one of the most spread forms of malware. As our research team also monitors these type of infection we can report that the first quarter of 2012 saw a slight increase in distribution of such rogue programs. The second month of 2012 was especially busy for the creators of such malware - each day we discover a modified or new type of a fake antivirus program.

Mac computers are continuing to be the least targeted system by the creators of malware, while there was a spike of such infections in June of 2011 which was influenced by the distribution of fake antiviruses Mac Protector, Mac Shield, Mac Guard, Mac Defender and Mac Security. The distribution of this type of Mac malware was stopped by the officials from FBI.

Spam market is also declining, it reached the lowest point by the end of 2011.Spam level has reached it's lowest point since 2007.

The most prevalent security issues during year 2011 includes network attacks and data-breaches. Privacyrights.org reports that data breaches has doubled comparing to 2009. McAfee Labs recorded an average of 6,500 new malware infected websites every day, as always this number drastically increases during holiday season. 

To sum up, you should always use a legitimate antivirus and antispyware program to protect your computer from prevailing malware threats. The fight against Internet criminals is a long term process, the best practises while surfing the Internet is using decent security programs and common sense.