14 DAY TRIAL // Panda Security’s PandaLabs has released its annual report for 2012. The study covers the evolution of mobile malware, ransomware, Mac security, social media networks, cybercrime, hacktivism and cyberwar.
The figures show that around 27 million new strains of malware were created in 2012, averaging at around 74,000 per day. This brings the total number of malware samples to a whopping 125 million.
Of the pieces of malware circulating in 2012, just over 76% were Trojans, followed by worms (11%), viruses (9%), and adware (2%).
Most malware-infected computers have been identified in China, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, Honduras, Bulgaria, Bolivia, Israel, Slovakia and Poland.
On the other end of the poll we have Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, the UK, Ireland, Finland, Germany, Holland, Greece and Canada.
Besides providing a review of 2012, the report also makes some interesting predictions for this year on topics such as social networks, Windows 8, growth of malware, malware for mobile devices, vulnerabilities and Mac malware.
“Cyber-espionage and cyber-war will also be on the rise, as more and more countries are organizing their own cyber-commando units. There is growing concern for the information that could be compromised and the possibility of using malware to launch direct attacks on critical infrastructure,” reads the report.
It concludes, “Companies will have to tighten up security measures to avoid falling victim to the increasing number of cyber-attacks, while special care will have to be taken to protect networks against operating system and application vulnerabilities, with Java posing the biggest threat due to its multiple security flaws.”
The complete PandaLabs Annual Report for 2012 is available here.