Report: 8 Out of 10 Users Infected With A Trojan

Trojans are king: They now account for more than three-quarters of all new malware created and 80 percent of all malware infections, according to new data published this week.

Some 77 percent of all new malware is a Trojan, while worms make up 11.3 percent, and viruses, 10.3 percent, of new malware, PandaLabs found in its second quarter 2013 threat report. The story is much the same for malware infections, with 79.7 percent due to Trojans, 6.7 percent due to viruses, and 6.1 percent due to worms.

"Cybercriminals use Trojans as a key tool to infect users, continually introducing changes to avoid detection, and, in many cases, automating the process of changing the Trojan," says Luis Corrons, technical director of PandaLabs. "They use scripts and special tools in order to change the binaries run on victims' computers to evade the signature-based detection used by antivirus firms.''

Overall, the volume of new malware samples rose in Q2 -- 12 percent more than the same period in 2013, and 17 percent more than the first half of the year.

China is home to the most infected machines, with 52.4 percent of infections, followed by Turkey, with 43.6 percent, and Peru, 42.1 percent. Europe has the lowest infection rates overall: The U.K. is No. 1 there, with 24.5 percent.

Speaking of China, it got a bit of a reprieve from the spotlight as the main cyberespionage actor in Q2 after controversial NSA spying programs came to light, according to PandaLabs. "China continues to occupy many of the headlines regarding cyberespionage, although in this quarter, the USA has been in the eye of the storm after revelations about the PRISM program that the NSA used to obtain data from users of platforms such as Facebook, YouTube or Skype," Corrons says.

The full PandaLabs report is available here (PDF) for download.

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