Norton creator and online security specialist Symantec Corporation has this week published a somewhat worrying threat report that reveals the world is now home to more than one million malicious viruses, worms and Trojans -- or malware as they are more accurately referred to.
Symantec threat report reveals more than one million known malware programs. Credit: Symantec.
According to Symantec’s latest bi-annual Internet Security Threat Report, passing the million mark sees the rise of potentially dangerous online programs hit a new high point, with around two-thirds of the total figure likely created in the last year alone.
The results garnered from the new threat report have been amassed by studying the latter half of 2007, which led to Symantec uncovering 499,811 nefarious forms of new malicious software (or malware) designed to infiltrate, influence and/or damage a user’s computer system without their knowledge.
These latest figures represent a massive jump of 136% when measured against the first six months of 2007, says the California-based company. The collective numbers for 2007 revealed 711,912 online threats, which, according to Symantec, brings its total malware detection figure to around 1,122,311.
While a staggering number of threats, Symantec points out that the majority of the malware programs contained within it are not original code but rather adapted variations based on previously successful attack programs already known by security vendors and used to good effect by online ne’er-do-wells.
According to the report’s offered explanation for the sudden rise in malware, a significant contributing factor is likely connected to its growing financial worth to those operating criminally.
Specifically, those engaged in widespread cyber crime are now employing the skills offered by groups of malware programmers to create new and effective code variants with which to break through computer protection and steal extremely lucrative personal user information.
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