More than 6m new malware samples have been created from April-June 2012, PandaLabs reveals in its Quarterly Report for Q2 that analysed IT security events and incidents.
The average number of infected PCs across the globe stands at 31.63pc, falling almost four percentage points compared to Q1, according to Panda Security’s Collective Intelligence data.
Countries in Asia take the top 3 spots of most infections per country, with South Korea leading (57.30pc of infected PCs) for the first time, up by almost three percentage points compared to Q1. China takes the second spot (51.94pc), followed by Taiwan and Bolivia at about 43pc.
Nine of the 10 least-infected countries are in Europe. The country with the fewest infections is Switzerland (18.40pc of infected PCs), followed by Sweden (19.07pc), comprising the only nations with fewer than 20pc of computers infected.
Ireland, Norway, the United Kingdom, Uruguay, Germany, Finland, Hungary and Holland are the other eight countries with the fewest malware infections.
“The list of least-infected countries is dominated by some of the world’s most technologically advanced nations, with the sole exception of South Korea,” said Luis Corrons, technical director of PandaLabs.
“Even though there may be other factors that influence these results, there seems to be a clear connection between technological development and malware infection rates.”
Malware statistics
Trojans continued to account for most of the new threats created this quarter (78.92pc); worms took second place, comprising 10.78pc of samples; followed by viruses at 7.44pc. Adware/spyware occupies last place, at 2.69pc.
Viruses continued their decline, moving from second place in the 2011 Annual Report (14.24pc) to third place (7.44pc) this quarter.
Worms maintained their second position, rising from 9.30pc last quarter to almost 11pc this quarter.
When it comes to the number of infections caused by each malware category, Trojans once again topped the ranking, accounting for more infections than in the first quarter (76.18pc compared to 66.30pc). Viruses came second (7.82pc), followed by worms (6.69pc).
“It is interesting to note that worms have only caused 6pc of infections despite accounting for almost 11pc of all new malware,” said Corrons. “The figures corroborate what is well known – massive worm epidemics have become a thing of the past and have been replaced by an increasing avalanche of banking Trojans and specimens such as the Police Virus.”
