14 DAY TRIAL // According to a report from Panda Security [pdf], an average of 73,000 new malware samples were created every day during the first quarter of 2011.
The number is with 10,000 samples larger than during the same period of 2010, suggesting that the malware landscape is even more active than one year ago.
An increase of 16% was also registered for the average number of daily strains over the previous quarter.
The antivirus vendor says that around one in three (37%) files received by its malware collection system was a new threat.
Of these, 70% were trojans, which is by far the most widespread type of malware at the moment. Trojans are preferred by cybercriminals because they can serve a variety of purposes.
One particular type of trojans that are very common, and according to Panda account for most of the rise in the number of malware samples, are downloaders.
These are small malicious executables that are used to deliver other malware on computers and are usually part of pay-per-install schemes.
Meanwhile, the number of banking trojans has remained pretty much unchanged and the number of botnet clients has slightly decreased.
The second most common type of threats during Q1 were viruses, which still account for 16% of the total volume of malware strains. Worms represented almost 7.7%, adware 2.2% and backdoors 1.8%.
As far as malware distribution per country goes, China is in front with an average infection level of over 65%, while Thailand follows closely.
Japan and Latvia are on par with a bit under 60%, while Russia, Turkey and Saudi Arabia are all just above 50%. A notable change is that U.S. moved out of the top 20 countries affected by malware this quarter.
Amongst other serious issues identified by Panda during Q1 2011 were the rise in Android malware, the increase in hacktivism, particularly due to Anonymous, and over-sharing of personal information on Facebook which can have dangerous consequences.