author: programming

Latest Security News | SecurityExtra.com

Q4 Threats Report Shows Malware Surpassed 75 Million Samples in 2011

Posted: 29 Feb 2012 03:29 AM PST

McAfee today released the McAfee Threats Report: Fourth Quarter 2011, revealing that malware surpassed the company's estimate of 75 million unique malware samples last year. Although the release of new malware slowed in Q4, mobile malware continued to increase and recorded its busiest year to date. "The threat landscape continued to evolve in 2011, and we saw a significant shift in motivation for cyber attacks," said Vincent Weafer, senior vice president of McAfee Labs. "Increasingly, we've seen that no organisation, platform or device is immune to the increasingly sophisticated and targeted threats. On a global basis, we are conducting more of our personal and business transactions through mobile devices, and this is creating new security risks and challenges in how we safeguard our commercial and personal data." Malware The overall growth of PC-based malware actually declined throughout Q4 2011, and is significantly lower than Q4 2010. The cumulative number of unique malware samples in the collection still exceeds the 75 million mark. In total, both 2011 and the fourth quarter were by far the busiest periods for mobile malware that McAfee has seen yet, with Android firmly fixed as the largest target for writers of mobile malware. Contributing to the [...]