The growth of malware ...

FYI…

1H 2009: Malware Threat Growth
- http://blog.trendmicro.com/1h-2009-malware…ws-ever-larger/
Aug. 14, 2009 - "…in the first six months of 2008, the Trend Micro World Virus Tracking Center (WTC) recorded that 253.4 million systems were infected with malware. The comparable volume for 2009 is almost double at 491.2 million… AV-Test.org* has released their findings for the first half of the year recently… With more than a million new samples being seen every month, it’s likely that the overall number of unique samples will grow beyond 30 million. That should clearly illustrate the scale of the malware threat…"

(Charts available at the URL above.)

* http://www.av-test.org/numbers.php

FYI…

2009 report Panda Labs - 25M new malware strains
- http://pandalabs.pandasecurity.com/2009-annual-report/
01/5/10 - "… the outstanding trend of the last 12 months has been the prolific production of new malware: 25 million new strains were created in just one year, compared to a combined total of 15 million throughout the rest of Panda Security’s 20-year history… some of the highlights of the report:
• PandaLabs identified more malware in 2009 than during the rest of its 20-year history
• Panda Security now has a knowledge base of 40 million samples, receiving an average of 55,000 new strains every day
• Banker Trojans and fake antivirus programs topped the threat ranking
• Social networks (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or Digg) and SEO attacks were favored by cybercriminals for spreading malicious code
• Politically motivated cyber-attacks significantly increased throughout 2009…"
(Link to full PDF report available at the URL above.)

Malware at midyear: a Summary
- http://www.trustedsource.org/blog/438/Malw…dyear-a-Summary
July 7, 2010 - "… With approximately 54,800 new samples arriving per day, the total size of our collection is almost 12 terabytes. At end of 2007, in contrast, and with only 5.8 million samples, the total size was only 1.1TB… Today when we quantify the malware world, the consensus is to use the number of unique files in our collections distinguished by their MD5 hash (or checksum). On June 30, we counted 43,337,677 unique binary files. Perhaps we’ll reach 54 million by the end of December."

FYI…

2010-H1 malware trends - UP 50%…
- http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/03/android_malware/
3 August 2010 - "… Sophos’ global network of labs received around 60,000 new malware samples every day in the first half of 2010, an average run rate of one new sample every 1.4 seconds per day every day. In the same period last year the rate was 40,000 samples per day. By that reckoning VXers have increased production by 50 per cent. Adobe came out a close second to Microsoft as hacker targets during the first six months of 2010, according to Sophos*. Booby-trapped websites and malware in e-mail, which has returned as a hacker favourite over recent months, remain security menaces to businesses. Hackers often use vulnerabilities to plant malware or -redirections- to hacking portals on legitimate websites. These tactics - along with the prevalence of free hosting providers in Europe that offer minimum setup times to business and hackers alike - resulted in France, Italy and the Netherlands all joining the top ten of malware hosting countries since the start of the year…"
* http://www.sophos.com/trmy10
(PDF file)

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FYI…

Q2 2010 - 10M new malware threats…
- http://newsroom.mcafee.com/article_display…article_id=3675
August 10, 2010 - "… malware has reached its highest levels, making the first six months of 2010 the most active half-year ever for total malware production… Malware continued to soar in Q2 2010, as there were 10 million new pieces cataloged in the first half of this year. Consistent with last quarter, threats on portable storage devices took the lead for the most popular malware, followed by fake anti-virus software and social media specific malware. With approximately 55,000 new pieces of malware that appear everyday, globally AutoRun malware and password-stealing Trojans round out the Top Two malware threats. After reaching its highest point in Q3 2009, with nearly 175 billion messages per day spam rates have hit a plateau… McAfee Labs saw a resurrection of two “dead” botnets. Storm Worm and Kraken, once considered to be among the biggest botnets on the planet, are again on the rise."

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FYI…

1,017,208 …
- http://www.gdatasoftware.co.uk/about-g-dat…er-viruses.html
09. September 2010 - "… G Data has noted a general increase in malware this year: the number of new computer viruses has already reached a new record for the first half of 2010, with 1,017,208 malware programs. This represents an increase of 50 percent compared to last year. Experts at G Data SecurityLabs are predicting a record total of over two million new malware programs for 2010 as a whole… Trojan horses dominate the top 5 malware categories, with a share of 42.6%. A big part of this category is made up by bogus antivirus programs and ransomware. Malware such as downloaders and droppers retain second place with a steady share of 20.3%. In the past six months many types of new spyware have appeared. Many of these are part of banking trojans or keyloggers. Spyware is the biggest growing of all malware categories. Spyware enables attackers to steal access data, for instance to social networks. The proportion of backdoors has dropped in comparison to the last half of 2009, coming in fourth place with 12%. Cyber criminals use such viruses to gain remote access to computers. Last place in the top 5 goes to worms, with 53,609 malware programs…"
(Charts available at the URL above.)

3.5B malicious URLs…
- http://forums.whatthetech.com/index.php?s=…st&p=687356

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FYI…

McAfee Threats Report - 2010-Q3
- http://www.mcafee.com/us/local_content/rep…s_report_en.pdf
PDF file 5.3MB - pg. 5: "…we see on average about 6,000,000 new botnet infections per month…"

Total malware samples in the database
- http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2010/11/1…fee-malware.png

Global SPAM volume
- http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2010/11/17/mcafee-spam.png

- http://newsroom.mcafee.com/article_display…article_id=3708
November 17, 2010

- http://press.pandasecurity.com/wp-content/…1/evolution.jpg
Nov. 24, 2010

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FYI…

Malware - UP 34% in 2010…
- http://isc.sans.edu/diary.html?storyid=10240
Last Updated: 2011-01-08 03:47:35 UTC - "According to PandaLabs 2010 Annual Report, 'In 2010, have created and distributed one third of all viruses that exist. These means that 34% of all malware ever created has appeared… in the last twelve months.' They have noticed a rise in malware distributed via popular social media like Facebook and Twitter as well as Linkedln and Fotolog. Activist attacks have been on the rise as well including coordinated DDoS against popular websites in support of Wikileaks…"
* http://press.pandasecurity.com/wp-content/…Report-2010.pdf

Panda - summary:
- http://pandalabs.pandasecurity.com/pandala…al-report-2010/
01/5/11
.

FYI…

Malware doubles in 2010
- http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/01/19…ial-networking/
January 19, 2011 - "Sophos has today published its annual Security Threat Report*, looking back at the last twelve months and ahead to the threats we can expect to encounter during 2011… One of the key findings is that reports of social networking spam and malware attacks have risen once again. By mid-2010, Facebook recorded half a billion active users, making it not only the largest social networking site, but also one of the most popular destinations on the web. Unsurprisingly, this massive and committed user base is heavily targeted by scammers and cybercriminals, with the number and diversity of attacks growing steadily throughout 2010 – malware, phishing and spam on the various social networks have all continued to rise in the past year…
• 40% of social networking users quizzed have been sent malware such as worms via social networking sites, a 90% increase since April 2009.
• Two thirds (67%) say they have been spammed via social networking sites, more than double the proportion less than two years ago.
• 43% have been on the receiving end of phishing attacks, more than double the figure since April 2009.
This isn't just a problem for home users. Many people check their social networking accounts from the workplace, making the sites a potential vector for attacks against businesses. There's no doubt that cybercriminals are showing a much higher level of interest in the social networks than ever before, with Facebook being the site they are targeting the most…"
* http://www.sophos.com/threatreport2011 - PDF file: 150 pgs.

- http://www.informationweek.com/shared/prin…cleID=229000910
January 19, 2011 - "New malware appears, on average, once every 0.9 seconds. For 2010, 95,000 unique pieces of malware in total appeared, doubling the volume of malware seen in 2009. Those findings come from the Sophos Security Threat Report 2011 …"

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FYI…

AV-Test year-end malware stats
- http://sunbeltblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/up…om-av-test.html
January 27, 2011 - "Andreas Marx at AV-Test has shared some more information which highlights the significance of the malware problem. The numbers are staggering — AV-Test processed an average of 54k samples per day in 2010, up from an average of 33k in 2009 — and up from 426 samples per day just a decade ago. Stats below, source data here* (xls), all courtesy of AV-Test."
(Charted - see the Sunbeltblog URL above.)
* http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/alex/gblog/…cs_2011-02.xlsx

AV certs - 2010 Q4 (Vista) …
- http://www.av-test.org/certifications.php
2011-01-27 (?)

> http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/alex/gblog/avtest4.png

20 million -new- pests in 2010 alone:
- http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item…iew=zoom;zoom=1

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FYI…

Search engine malware doubled in 2010…
- http://www.darkreading.com/taxonomy/index/…le/id/229300350
Mar 04, 2011 - "Malware authors are increasingly using search engines and social networks to spread their wares and are relying less on email, according to a report published yesterday. In its new "2010 Annual Security Report," Barracuda Networks* says spam dropped by half during 2010, while search engine malware doubled. The Twitter Crime Rate - the percentage of accounts created per month that are eventually suspended by Twitter - increased 20 percent in 2010, Barracuda says, "signifying a concentrated focus on the more lucrative social networks and search engines as attack vectors". To help users fight infection on social networks, Barracuda Networks yesterday rolled out a free service, Profile Protector**, which helps detect malicious threats on Facebook and Twitter… attackers have increased the spread of search engine malware and expanded their reach beyond Google. In June 2010, Google was crowned king of malware, turning up more than twice the amount of malware as Bing, Twitter, and Yahoo! combined, the report says. But by December 2010, with Google producing 38 percent of overall malware, Yahoo! was at 30 percent, Bing at 24 percent, and Twitter at 8 percent. The amount of malware found daily across the search engines increased 55 percent between June and December, Barracuda says. One in five search topics leads to malware, while one in 1,000 search results leads to malware. Barracuda Labs also analyzed more than 26 million Twitter accounts in order to measure and analyze account behavior. The number of true Twitter users - those with more than 10 followers and friends - increased to 43 percent in the second half, up from only 29 percent in June 2010. For every 100 Twitter users, 39 have between one and nine followers, while 50 have more than 10 followers. Approximately 79 percent of Twitter users tweet less than once per day, the report says. After decreasing at the end of 2009, the Twitter Crime Rate increased 20 percent from the first half of 2010 to the second half of 2010, going from 1.6 percent to 2 percent, Barracuda Networks says."
* http://www.barracudalabs.com/research_resources.html

** http://profileprotector.com/

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FYI…

New Malware increases by 26% - More than 73,000 samples every day
- http://press.pandasecurity.com/usa/news/cr…g-to-pandalabs/
Mar. 16, 2011 - "… In the first three months of 2011, PandaLabs identified an average of 73,000 new malware strains each day, most of which were Trojans. Moreover, there was a 26 percent increase of new threats compared to the same period last year…
- http://prensa.pandasecurity.com/wp-content…1/03/Graph1.jpg
… Trojans remain the most popular type of threat to computer systems, and now account for 70 percent of all new malware….
- http://press.pandasecurity.com/wp-content/…03/GRAPH2EN.jpg
… Banker Trojans have decreased, bots have remained steady, and fake anti-virus or rogueware has decreased in popularity. However, the number of “downloaders” has increased significantly. Downloaders are a subtype of Trojan that, once it has infected a user’s computer, connect through the Internet to download additional malware. Hackers often use this method because the downloader is lightweight – only containing a few lines of code – and can go completely unnoticed unlike other Trojans…"
- http://press.pandasecurity.com/usa/wp-cont…03/GRAPH3EN.jpg

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FYI…

Trojan production UP …
- http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/06/malware_trends/
6 April 2011 - "Malware authors have stepped up production rates still further in their efforts to overwhelm anti-virus defences with banking Trojans and other crud. During the first three months of 2011 an average of 73,000 new strains of malware have been created every day: 10,000 more than during the same period last year… Panda's pie-chart here*… PandaLabs latest quarterly report can be found here**…"
* http://press.pandasecurity.com/wp-content/…AMILIES_ENG.jpg

** http://press.pandasecurity.com/press-room/reports/
Quarterly Report PandaLabs (January-March 2011) - PDF file 2.6MB
Pg. 9 - "… PandaLabs has found an important increase in the number of new threats received at the laboratory every day: from 55,000 just a few months ago, to 63,000 at the end of last year and an average of 73,190 so far in 2011. That is, a 16 percent growth compared to Q4 last year…"

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FYI…

Q1 2012: Malware report - Increase across -all- Platforms
- http://www.mcafee.com/us/about/news/2012/q2/20120523-01.aspx
May 23, 2012 - "… PC malware reached its highest levels in four years, as well as a steep increase in malware targeting the Android platform. Mac malware was also on the rise, indicating that total malware could reach the 100 million mark within the year…
- Mobile malware raced up a significant incline during Q1 2012, with 8,000 total mobile malware samples collected. This large increase was due in part to McAfee Labs’ advancements in the detection and accumulation of mobile malware samples. Financial profit is one of the main motivators for spreading malware on the Android platform, as identified by McAfee Labs malware researcher Carlos Castillo in a recent blog post. Nearly 7,000 Android threats have been collected and identified through the end of Q1, a more than 1200 percent increase compared with the 600 Android samples collected by the end of Q4 2011. The majority of these threats stem from third-party app markets, and are typically not found in the official Android market…
- Malware Increase in PCs and Macs
By the end of 2011, McAfee Labs collected more than 75 million malware samples. Q1 2012 had the largest number of PC malware detected per quarter in the last four years. This increase brought the grand total to 83 million pieces of malware samples by the end of Q1, up from 75 million samples at the end of Q4 2011. Major contributors to the total were strong increases in rootkits, a stealth form of malware, as were password stealers, which reached approximately 1 million new samples in Q1. In Q1, email continued to be a medium used for highly targeted attacks, and nearly all targeted attacks began with a spear phish…"

> http://www.mcafee.com/us/resources/reports…eat-q1-2012.pdf
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- http://www.av-test.org/en/statistics/malware/
Last Update: 05-24-2012
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Monthly Malware Statistics: April 2012
- https://www.securelist.com/en/analysis/2047…tics_April_2012
11 May 2012 - "The following statistics were compiled in April using data collected from computers running Kaspersky Lab products:
• 280 million malicious programs were detected and neutralized;
• 134 million (48% of all threats) web-borne infections were prevented;
• More than 24 million malicious URLs were detected…"
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Most dangerous websites …
- http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505124_162-574…erous-websites/
May 24, 2012 - "… According to Symantec*, 20 percent of all blog and Web communication sites are infected with malicious code, 15 percent of hosting sites are infected, and 10 percent of business and economy sites…"
* http://www.symantec.com/threatreport/

FYI…

> http://www.av-test.org/en/statistics/malware/
Almost at 80 million…
Last update: 7.17.2012

> https://threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/south-ko…2-report-080712
August 7, 2012

PandaLabs' Q2-2012 Report
- http://press.pandasecurity.com/wp-content/…l-June-2012.pdf
Pg. 11 - "… The average number of -infected- PCs across the globe stood at 31.63 percent…"

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FYI…

McAfee Q2-2012 Threat Report
- https://threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/mobile-m…t-report-090412
Sep 4, 2012 - "McAfee Labs researchers today announced a surge in malware samples this year - particularly threats that take advantage of mobile networks to launch drive-by downloads, control botnets using Twitter and spread ransomware that locks down infected machines and demand payments from users… its researchers say they've unearthed 1.5 million new pieces of malware this year, or an average of nearly 100,000 malware samples a day. More and more malicious code is targeting Google's Android OS, though Apple users are far from immune too. More than 100 new Mac-oriented samples were discovered last quarter… The past quarter was also the busiest ever for ransomware, which holds part or all of a victim's data hostage and demands anonymous payment methods to restore it… Botnets reached a 12-month high last quarter, with more attackers using Twitter to send out commands and get all infected devices to follow them. Additionally, thumb drives containing malware - particularly password-stealing code - remain a popular conduit to infect machines… More Web sites that host malware are gaining bad reputations… The authors note that their figure is at odds with the 9,500 new malicious web sites Google announced in a June blog post*."
* http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2…-users-for.html

- http://www.marketwatch.com/story/mcafee-th…ears-2012-09-04
Sep 4, 2012 - "… After the mobile malware explosion in Q1 2012, Android malware shows no signs of slowing down, putting users on high alert. Virtually all new mobile malware detected in Q2 2012 was directed at the Android platform, and was comprised of SMS-sending malware, mobile botnets, spyware and destructive Trojans… Ransomware is especially problematic as it can hold computers and data hostage, instantly damaging machines. Botnets, a network of compromised computers infected with malicious software and used to generate spam, send viruses or cause Web servers to fail, have also taken center stage again this quarter with infections reaching a 12-month high… Thumb drive and password-stealing malware showed significant growth in Q2… Websites with malicious reputations are influenced by the hosting of malware, potentially unwanted programs, or phishing sites… full copy of the McAfee Threats Report, Second Quarter 2012, please visit
http://www.mcafee.com/us/resources/reports…eat-q2-2012.pdf .

Largest Malware Rise in Four Years
- http://www.mcafee.com/us/about/news/2012/q3/20120904-01.aspx
Sep 4, 2012

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