WEB and MOBILE FRAUD
2013 - the Year of the Internet Scammer
According to the report, malware creation hit a new milestone. In 2013 alone, cyber-criminals created and distributed 20 percent of all malware that has ever existed, with a total of 30 million new malicious strains in circulation, at an average of 82,000 per day.
Despite Trojans continuing to be the most common security threat, the company’s anti-malware laboratory has observed a wide variety of attacks, with a notable resurgence of ransomware - a type of malicious software designed to block access to a computer system until a sum of money is paid - CryptoLocker being one of the nastiest examples.
The proportion of infected computers around the world was 31.53 percent, very similar to the 2012 figures.
Besides offering an overview of the most significant events in the computer security field, the 2013 Annual Security Report also forecasts future trends for 2014. Much of 2014’s headlines will focus on the Internet of Things (IoT) and Android devices, which will continue to be exploited by attackers to steal users’ data and money. PandaLabs expects to see hundreds of thousands of new strains of Android-targeting malware in circulation. 2013 saw a large number of Android scams that used malicious ads in legitimate apps, and it has been estimated that last year alone cyber-criminals released more than two million new malware threats for Android.
Click here to read the report.
