60% Of Malware Created In 2008

Symantec’s latest Internet Security Threat Report came out this week and it showed that Symantec issued 1,656,227 new malicious code signatures in 2008. This is more than all the previous years put together!
istr2009-1
This represents a tipping point, where it is now easier to look at the good stuff rather than the bad. By following the trend and anticipating the changes, Symantec’s anti-malware products are now a mixture of technologies, blacklisting (the old way – spotting the bad stuff), whitelisting (lists of the good stuff), reputation based (so that new ‘good stuff’ doesn’t get ignored) and behavioural (if there’s something, previously unknown, that is behaving badly it can be stopped.)

One of the other interesting statistics was on the rise of bots. Globally bots are up 31%, with EMEA up 47%. Bots are responsible for around 90% of the spam… so if your computer is infected then you are part of the problem!

Cyber-criminals are still after your confidential information with credit card and bank account details topping the list. Prices on the underground economy have fallen this year indicating that there is more information around and more people trying to sell it. Look after your information – and keep your system up to date – with OS and application patches along with the latest virus definitions. All this can happen automatically… as long as you don’t turn the functionality off.

April 17, 2009 | Filed Under security 

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