According to Kaspersky Lab's analysts, in 2007 the number of new malicious programs recorded on the Internet, including viruses, worms and Trojans, amounted to 2,227,415, which represents a four-fold increase on the results for 2006 (535,131). The overall volume of detected malware reached 354 GB in 2007. Before the year was out, many leading antivirus experts were calling this huge increase in malware an extreme situation. Some antivirus companies were simply incapable of effectively combating the sheer number of threats.
However, the year-end results for 2008, according to the experts, will demonstrate a very different trend. They forecast not a four-fold but 10-fold increase in the number of new malicious programs -- an increase of more than 20 million.
In addition to the quantity, the quality of malicious programs is also improving. New and more complex samples, such as the notorious Zhelatin (aka the Storm Worm), are emerging that demonstrate a wide range of hostile behavior and distribution methods.
