2012-06-01
Abstract
McAfee reports a striking increase in the number of malware samples seen since the start of the year.
Copyright © 2012 Virus Bulletin
In its latest quarterly report, security firm McAfee has revealed that the number of mobile malware samples in its database has exceeded 8,000. While this is only about 0.01% of the total number of malware samples in the company’s database, it is the increase that is most striking: the number of mobile samples was less than 2,000 at the beginning of the year. The vast majority of the samples (almost 7,000) target the Android platform, with Symbian a distant second.
The report also shows that, after a spike in January, spam levels have shown a slow decrease. The picture varies greatly from country to country however, and spam in some geographic areas actually increased. This was most noticeable in Germany, where levels in March were higher than they had been in over a year.
As email has become less popular with cybercriminals, they have increasingly turned to the web. The number of active malicious URLs known to McAfee has shown a constant increase and exceeded 800,000 in March. The company claims to have prevented a web-based malware attack for one in eight of its customers.
