Rise in Malware Threats

Malware danger and profitability rising

FBI reports show general increases in money-driven threats.

Two major new reports on computer security issues have shown a steady rise in just about every aspect of security risk, with increased danger from each vector in some way linked to financial motives.

According to Symantec's report on the threat landscape in the second half or last year, released last week, viruses, worms and trojans, exploitation of vulnerabilities, spam and phishing, spyware and data theft were all up on previous figures.

The report shows a decrease in volume of network worms, with a matching increase in the numbers of trojans seen, and also reckons that while half of the top ten malcode families are viruses and worms and half are trojans, the trojans have the edge in terms of potential to infect.

The US was again the major source of malware and spam, and although China has the lead in terms of machines infected with bots, most are controlled from the US, and the States is also home to most spam-sending bots.

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