14 DAY TRIAL // Security firm McAfee has released its threats reports for the first quarter of 2013. According to the study, in Q1, experts noticed a dramatic increase in spam and a spike in the instances of the social networking worm dubbed Koobface.
The company says the number of Koobface samples is three times larger compared to the previous quarter.
As far as spam is concerned, McAfee notes that this is the first time an increase is recorded in global spam volume in over three years. The increase in spam volume is partly caused by the return of the so-called “pump and dump” spam campaign in North America.
A 30% increase has also been recorded in threats that target the master boot record (MBR). These threats include Shamoon, Cidox, TDSS and StealthMBR.
The number of pieces of malware designed to target PCs has increased by 28%. On the other hand, mobile malware has increased by 40%, despite the fact that its growth has slightly declined.
The complete McAfee report is available here.