Malware Creation hit a New Record High in 2011 with 26 million samples

[NathanF1]

PandaLabs, the antimalware laboratory of Panda Security, has released its 2011 Annual Security Report, which details an extremely interesting year of data theft, social networking attacks and cyber-warfare. According to the report, malware creation hit a new record high in 2011 with 26 million new strains in circulation, nearly one-third of all malware that has ever existed and been classified by the company (88 million).

These figures show cyber-criminals’ sheer capacity to automate the creation of new malware variants, further evidenced by the average number of new threats created and released every day increasing from 63,000 to 73,000 since last year. Panda Security leverages Collective Intelligence, a cloud-based proprietary system that automatically detects, analyzes and classifies 99.4 percent of all malware received, leaving just 0.6 percent to be dealt with manually. In November 2011, PandaLabs announced that Collective Intelligence had reached a historic milestone by processing 200 million files, and this number has already reached 210 million.

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A few key points from the report:

2011 at a glance
Social networks, Cyber-war, Mobile Malware and Cyber-activism were headline-grabbing events in 2011.

Malware Figures in 2011
Trojans continued to account for most of the new threats, growing spectacularly. In 2009, Trojans made up 60 percent of all malware, whereas the percentage dropped to 56 percent in 2010. This year they have jumped up to 73 percent, so that nearly three out of every four new malware strains created in 2011 were Trojans. All other malware categories have lost ground with respect to Trojans, once again the weapon of choice for cyber-crooks’ intrusion and data theft efforts.

Malware Infections in 2011
There is not a big difference between the different types of malware created and the infections caused by each of them, with one exception: the percentage of computers infected by adware/spyware almost triples the percentage of new adware/spyware strains created.
What is the reason for this ‘anomaly’? This category includes fake antivirus software or rogueware: applications created by cyber-crooks that try to pass themselves off as legitimate software applications in order to trick users by falsely informing them that their computers are infected, and prompting them to buy a program to disinfect them.
Rogueware is ideal for cyber-criminals, who no longer need to steal users’ information to make their money; instead, users part with their cash voluntarily. This is why computer criminals are spreading rogueware to as many people and as quickly as possible. The more infections, the more profit.

Conclusion
Cyber-espionage and social networking attacks will be the predominant threats to safeguard against this year. The rise of social media, which has increased communication between people all over the world, has its own disadvantages too. Cyber-thieves can infect and steal data from thousands or millions of users in one go. You no longer need to be a computer whiz to gain control of a system or edit malicious code to generate new malware strains.


PandaLabs Annual Report 2011