Malware still malingering for up-to-date anti-virus users

Having anti-virus software and keeping it up to date is no longer enough to keep from geting infected by malware.

A study by Panda Security revealed that 72 per cent of firms with up-to-date security software still had malware on their networks. The data - based on a sample of 1.5m users last year - also revealed that 23 per cent of home computers were infected. PCs protected by the security software from multiple vendors were affected by the problem.

The data comes from scans by users of Panda's ActiveScan online scanning tool.

Panda reckons the problem arises because the traditional anti-virus scanning approaches are no longer keeping up with the exponential growth in malware products. As a result, users are infected by threats that slip under the radar and leave little indication of their presence.

"The situation is getting out of control," said Luis Corrons, PandaLabs technologies manager.

In response to the problem, Panda Security is rolling out a change in its architecture so that malware detection is more automated. Clients are linked together through data centres that correlate data and push signature updates automatically. This approach, dubbed 'collective intelligence', is designed to overcome the shortcomings of the traditional approach of pushing out virus updates from a lab.