Russian IT security vendor Kaspersky Lab forecasts a tenfold increase in the number of new malicious programs that will run wild on the Internet this year. This translates to around 20 million items of malware.
Kaspersky says the number of new malicious programs recorded on the Internet, including viruses, worms and Trojans, amounted to 2 227 415 in 2007. This was a fourfold increase on the results for 2006 (535 131).
Before the year was out, many anti-virus experts were calling this huge increase in malware an extreme situation, the Russian vendor adds.
But Kaspersky warns that anomaly will be the new normal, adding that last year it added 250 000 new signatures to its anti-virus database. "According to our forecast, one million new signatures will be added to the databases in 2008."
In addition to the quantity, the quality of malicious programs is also improving.
"New and more complex samples, such as the notorious Zhelatin (also known as the Storm Worm), are emerging that demonstrate a wide range of hostile behaviour and distribution methods," the company cautions.
Related stories:
Users still fall for old tricks
Spam peaks at 88%
Cyber-criminals consider culture
Miscreants test malware too
Malware menaces mobiles
Share