New Malware in 2007 Increased Tenfold Over 2006

The number of new strains of malware that appeared in 2007 increased tenfold with respect to the previous year. Over the last year, PandaLabs has received an average of more than 3,000 new strains of malware every day. This represents a malware epidemic which although silent, with little media coverage and no widespread alerts, is nevertheless equally dangerous.

In terms of percentages, the number of new examples of malware that appeared in 2007 increased 800 percent with respect to 2006 which, in turn, witnessed an increase of 172 percent on the previous year.

This means that the rate with which the amount of malware in circulation is growing is increasing year after year. As regards protection, solutions solely based on continuously updated signature files are no longer sufficient to guarantee users' security. This is evident from the results of a study carried out by PandaLabs which showed that 23 percent of home users were infected with malware, despite having a security solution installed and enabled on their computers. The situation in corporate environments is similar. According to the study, almost 72 percent of networks with more than 100 workstations were infected with malware.