Panda Security: Cybercriminals seem to be working non-stop. In fact, in the third quarter of 2014, they created more than 20 million new malware variants, which translates to 227,747 new samples per day.
Most of these pose no risk to users who have a reliable security application installed on their computer, but the sheer number of malicious programs released on a daily basis is truly alarming.
Panda Security researchers in a report covering the last quarter of the year state that most of the threats recorded through their systems were Trojans, representing 78.08% of the total number of samples, which is not surprising, because this category of malware includes a multitude of threats, such as backdoors, rootkits, infostealers, malware downloaders and droppers for ransomware and spyware.
Viruses and worms come in second and third place respectively, representing 8.89% and 3.92%, according to the presentation by PandaLabs Technical Director, Luis Corrons.
In terms of infection rates, Trojans were responsible for most of them, while potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) came in second place, with a rate of 14.55%.
According to the report, Europe is the region with the lowest number of infections, and nine countries are in the top ten safest. Norway and Sweden hold the top spots. Japan is the only Asian country on the list.
Mobile operating system malware recorded by the security firm appears to be on the rise, having grown in both number and malicious capabilities. According to the International Telecommunications Union, there are approximately 2.3 billion smartphones in the world, making mobile operating systems very ripe for cybercriminal activity.
A report released by Kaspersky in October reveals that most mobile malware is created for the Android platform, and in the first half of the year their systems recorded 175,442 new unique malware for that operating system alone.
Banking Trojans are the top threat to mobile phones, and most malware for these devices comes disguised as legitimate apps or updates.
