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ID theft malware rates...
- http://preview.tinyurl.com/dn8vkj
March 9, 2009 PandaLabs blog - "Today we're announcing results of a study that analyzed 67 million computers in 2008 and revealed that 1.1 percent of the worldwide population of Internet users have been actively exposed to identity theft malware. We predict that the infection rate will increase by an additional 336 percent per month throughout 2009, based on the trend of the previous 14 months. Here are the highlights from our study on the evolution of online identity theft:
• Over three million of the audited users in the U.S. and more than 10 million users worldwide were infected with active identity theft-based malware last year.
• 1.07% of all PCs scanned in 2008 were infected with active malware (resident in memory during the scan) related to identity theft, such as banker Trojans.
• 35% of the infected PCs had up-to-date antivirus software installed.
• The number of PCs infected with identify theft malware increased by 800 percent from the first half of 2008 to the second half.
• Arizona, California and Florida continue to be the states with the highest per-capita incidence of reported identity theft.
Active malware means malware that is loaded into the PC's memory and actively running as a process. For example, users of PCs infected with this type of identity theft malware who utilize online services such as shopping, banking, and social networking, have had their identities stolen in some fashion. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the average time victims spend resolving identity theft issues is 30 hours per incident. The cumulative cost in hours alone from identity theft related malware based on Panda Security's projected infection rate could reach 90 million hours..."
