Malware has reached its highest levels with 10 million new pieces cataloged during the first half of 2010, while spam registered growth of 2.5% compared to Q1 2010, according to a new report from security firm McAfee.
According to the McAfee Threats Report: Second Quarter 2010, threats on portable storage devices was the most popular malware, followed by fake anti-virus software and social media specific malware, while AutoRun malware and password-stealing Trojans topped the malware threats list.
The report revealed that delivery status notifications, or non-delivery receipt spam were popular in US, Italy, Spain, China, Great Britain, Brazil, Germany and Australia, while malware spam or Trojan attachment urging users to visit an infected website topped in Colombia, India, South Korea, Russia and Vietnam.
McAfee also found that Argentina received the most variety in spam, ranging between 16 different topics including drugs, lonely women and diplomas, while Italy had the least variety with just six types of spam.
The security vendor said that attackers leveraged major news events to poison Internet searches, with World Cup and Middle East conflict gaining No.1 and No.2 spots, respectively. Additionally, the report saw a resurrection of two botnets: Storm Worm and Kraken, which were once considered to be among the biggest botnets on the planet.
McAfee global threat intelligence senior vice president and chief technology officer Mike Gallagher said that the firm’s latest threat report depicts that malware has been on a steady incline in the first half of 2010.
"It’s also obvious that cybercriminals are becoming more in tune with what the general public is passionate about from a technology perspective and using it to lure unsuspecting victims," Gallagher said.
"These findings indicate that not only should cybercrime education be more widespread, but that security organisations should move from a reactive to a predictive security strategy."
