Report: Trojans Comprised 70 Percent Of Malware In Q2

Adware, worms on the rise; spyware drops off

Dark Reading Staff, Dark Reading

July 7, 2009

1 Min Read
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Trojans accounted for 70 percent of all new malware between April and June, according to a report issued earlier today by PandaLabs.

The report (PDF), which tracks security trends on a quarterly basis, shows a 6.25 percent drop in spyware, which now represents just 6.9 percent of all new malware.

In contrast, adware rose dramatically during the same period, from 7.54 percent in the previous quarter to 16.37 percent. This is largely due to the increase in fake antivirus applications, PandaLabs says. Worms are also on the rise, and now account for 4.4 percent of all malware, the company says.

Trojans were responsible for more infections than any other type of malware during the quarter, the researchers say. Trojans were behind 34.37 percent of all infections detected, an increase of 2.86 percent over the previous quarter. Adware infection levels remained stable, accounting for 19.62 percent of the total.

The No. 1 malware offender in the second quarter was Downloader.MDW, a Trojan designed to download other malware. The Virtumonde spyware and Rebooter.J Trojan were among the malicious codes that caused the most infections.

Taiwan continues to top the list of victims -- 33.63 percent of computers in that country are infected with active malware. Turkey and Poland come next, with just less than 30 percent.

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