U.S. Tops World with Malware
Malware has wrecked havoc on many computers around the globe, but according to recent figures released by Trend Micro, nowhere has its effect been as harsh as the United States of America.
The U.S. leads the world in terms of the number of personal computers infected with malicious software by a mile, boasting an estimated 66.8 million PC’s infected. Japan is a very distant second with 10.7 million PC’s infected, followed by Taiwan with 6.7 million.
China is fourth with 3.7 million PC’s infected, while Australia finished fifth with 1.9 million PC’s infected with malware.
Spain (1.5 million), France (1.4 million), the Netherlands (466,071), the United Kingdom (451,652), and Turkey (437,849) rounded out the top 10 list.
The malware landscape is about as bleak as it’s ever been. Cloudmark recently conveyed findings of increasing instances of “converged” malware attacks involving all-in-one attacks lobbed at the Web, e-mail, mobile devices, and online social networks.
“Smishing” is a new form of a mobile phishing attack that involves VoIP phone numbers stolen by way of e-mail phishing attacks. A “crush” attack lures unknowing mobile users to log into a Web page by telling them that someone has a crush on them through an SMS message, consequently opting them into an SMS service.
Sources:
http://www.itpro.co.uk/blogs/asavinw/2008/08/18/the-malware-olympics-usa-beat-china/
http://www.thewhir.com/marketwatch/081508_Cross-Platform_Malware_Risk_Growing.cfm
