On Sept. 4 McAfee released the McAfee Threats Report: Second Quarter 2012. Of major importance was the dramatic increase in malware samples detected in the last four years. In fact there was a 1.5 million increase in threats since the first quarter of the 2012. According to the report, the malware sample discovery rate has accelerated to nearly 100,000 per day.
McAfee Labs has spent significant time and research addressing the problem of malware attacks. As one of the largest companies providing anti-virus software it is required to keep abreast of current threats and to identify key malware variants and patterns.
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For example, Apple has proudly advertised that Macs didn’t get viruses. However as Macintosh increases its PC market share it becomes a desirable target for hackers. This summer, the company scaled back its security claims.
“Over the last quarter we have seen prime examples of malware that impacted consumers, businesses, and critical infrastructure facilities,” said Vincent Weafer, senior vice president of McAfee Labs. “Attacks that we’ve traditionally seen on PCs are now making their way to other devices. For example, in Q2 we saw Flashback, which targeted Macintosh devices and techniques such as ransomware and drive-by downloads targeting mobile. This report highlights the need for protection on all devices that may be used to access the Internet.”
Additionally the report indicates that malware writers are successfully targeting popular consumer and business platforms, such as Android OS. Virtually all new mobile malware detected in Q2 2012 was directed at the Android platform, and was comprised of SMS-sending malware, mobile botnets, spyware and destructive Trojans. The report highly recommends that all mobile users must be on high alert as malware focused on mobile devices shows no signs of slowing down.
In terms of attacks via website visitation, this quarter McAfee Labs recorded an average of 2.7 million new bad URLs per month. In June, these new URLs were related to about 300,000 bad domains, which is equivalent to 10,000 new malicious domains every day. Of the new bad URLs, 94.2 percent host malware, exploits or code that have been specifically designed to hijack computers.
The McAfee Labs team of 500 multidisciplinary researchers in 30 countries follows the complete range of threats in real time, identifying application vulnerabilities, analyzing and correlating risks, and enabling instant remediation to protect enterprises and the public. The full copy of the report is available to the public.
