ScanSafe Reports Spyware Surge

LONDON -- ScanSafe, the leading global provider of Web Security-as-a-Service, today issued its Annual Global Threat Report. The report is based on an analysis of more than 60 billion Web requests processed in 2006 by the ScanSafe Threat Center on behalf of the company’s corporate customers in more than 30 countries across five continents. It represents the world’s largest security analysis of real-world Web traffic.

Among the report’s findings, the convergence of threats dominates the Web security landscape. In 2006, ScanSafe blocked 254 percent more instances of spyware and saw 32 percent fewer Web viruses than it did in 2005. However, the number of new unique Web viruses continues to grow and mutate to pose new threats.

“Not only did we see relentless growth in spyware throughout the year, but we saw that it is increasingly harboring more sinister payloads,” said Dan Nadir, vice president of product strategy at ScanSafe. “We also noticed a trend towards Web viruses being leveraged to spread spyware. The net result is that the line between spyware and Web viruses has become so blurred that malware is the only appropriate term to describe the ever increasing permutations of Web-based threats.”

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