McAfee reveals surge in Malware and drop in Spam
McAfee has released the McAfee Threats Report: First Quarter 2011. With six million unique samples of recorded malware, Q1 2011 was the most active first quarter in malware history. The report revealed many of the trends that had a significant impact on the threat landscape, such as the takedown of the Rustock botnet, which resulted in spam remaining at its lowest levels since 2007, and confirmed that mobile malware is the new frontier of cybercrime.
"The Q1 Threats Report indicates that it has been a busy start to 2011 for cybercriminals," said Vincent Weafer, Senior Vice-President of McAfee Labs. "Even though this past quarter once again showed that spam has slowed, it does not mean that cybercriminals are not actively pursuing alternate avenues. We are seeing a lot of emerging threats, such as Android malware and new botnets attempting to take over where Rustock left off, that will have a significant impact on the activity we see quarter after quarter."
With more than six million unique malware samples in Q1, this period far exceeds any first quarter in malware history. February 2011 saw the most new malware samples of the quarter, at approximately 2.75 million. Fake antivirus software had a very active quarter as well, reaching its highest levels in more than a year, totalling 350,000 unique fake-alert samples in March 2011.
Malware no longer affects just PCs. As Android devices have grown in popularity, the platform solidified its spot as the second most popular environment for mobile malware behind Symbian OS during the first three months of the year.
The cybercriminals behind the Zeus crimeware toolkit have also directed attacks toward the mobile platform, creating new versions of Zitmo mobile malware for both Symbian and Windows Mobile systems to steal user bank-account information.
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