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Global malware rose 60% in 1H2011 —Report


Malware rose by a whopping 60 percent over 2010, with as many as 150,000 new samples being seen every day —or two coming up every second. This was one of the findings of computer security firm Sophos, which released earlier this week its midyear threat report for 2011. “Since the start of 2011, we've seen 150,000 malware samples every day. That's a unique file almost every half second, and a 60-percent increase as compared to malware analyzed in 2010," it said. It also noted at least 19,000 new malicious URLs each day in the first half of this year. Worse, 80 percent of those URLs are legitimate websites that were hacked or compromised, it said. A new web threat is also detected every 4.5 seconds in the first half of the year, it added. “The U.S. still holds the top spot on the list of countries hosting malware, although the total percentage of malware hosted by the U.S. declined slightly during the first half of 2011," it said. However, it said the US percentage was down 1.4 points from 39.39 percent in 2010. It added the Russian Federation now claims the number two spot, a position held by France last year. Also, the report said 81 percent of respondents to its survey said Facebook posed the biggest social networking risk. It was a "significant rise" from the 60 percent who felt Facebook was the riskiest when asked the same question last year, Sophos said. Meanwhile, Sophos’ report said high-profile hacking attacks against governments and corporations dominated the security landscape in 2011. This virtually drowned out attacks that target consumers such as fake anti-virus, search engine poisoning and social networking scams. However, it said search engine poisoning attacks account for more than 30 percent of all malware detected by Sophos’s Web Appliance. “By manipulating search results from search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo, cybercriminals attempt to lure web surfers to malicious pages. They usually hijack keywords relating to breaking news or other popular search terms. Users are then redirected to malicious sites that attempt to install malware, including fake anti-virus, on computers," it said. Malicious trend vs social networking sites In its report, Sophos also noted the significant rise in malicious attacks on social networking sites. “Threats such as scam attacks, cross-site scripting, click-jacking, bogus surveys and identity theft, have sharply escalated," it said. — TJD, GMA News

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