Malware up 800 percent in 2007

The amount of malware captured last year increased by 800 percent over 2006, researchers said this week. The increase was a substantial jump from 2006, when malware examples increased by 172 percent over 2005, according to Panda Security.

Researchers at the Madrid-based anti-virus vendor received an average of more than 3,000 strains of malware per day during 2007. Ryan Sherstobitoff, chief corporate evangelist at Panda, told SCMagazine.com today that 72 percent of networks tested by his company contained active threats.

Cybercriminals are attempting to flood networks with more malware than the networks can handle, he said.

“The idea behind the saturation is that if they can put too much [malware] out in the field, they can hope the protection is not up to date and some can slip below the radar,” said Sherstobitoff. “What's occurring is that a lot of groups from Russia, Taiwan and other places are creating a lot of new malware for doing economic fraud.”