Spam Hits A Plateau While Malicious Files Rise To 6 Mn

McAfee has unveiled its McAfee Threats Report: Second Quarter 2010, which uncovered that malware has reached its highest levels, making the first six months of 2010 the most active half-year ever for total malware production. At the same time, spam leveled out with only 2.5 percent growth from Q1 2010.

Malware continued to soar in Q2 2010, as there were 10 million new pieces cataloged in the first half of this year. Consistent with last quarter, threats on portable storage devices took the lead for the most popular malware, followed by fake anti-virus software and social media specific malware. With approximately 55,000 new pieces of malware that appear everyday, globally AutoRun malware and password-stealing Trojans round out the Top Two malware threats.

“Our latest threat report depicts that malware has been on a steady incline in the first half of 2010,” said Mike Gallagher, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Global Threat Intelligence, McAfee.

“It’s also obvious that cybercriminals are becoming more in tune with what the general public is passionate about from a technology perspective and using it to lure unsuspecting victims. These findings indicate that not only should cybercrime education be more widespread, but that security organisations should move from a reactive to a predictive security strategy,” Gallagher said.