Malware, it's everyware

ya know - one of these mornings, I've GOT to find some good news to write about! :) All these reports of hacks, cracks, malwares and thefts ... it's starting to wear on me!

malware - I think of it like a shortening of the two words malicious and software. it's there to do damage to you, your finances and anything the badguys can harvest from your server.

Check out this article though from Dark Reading -
"The number of new strains of malware that appeared in 2007 increased tenfold with respect to the previous year," said PandaLabs, Panda Security's research arm, in a report issued yesterday. "Over the last year, PandaLabs has received an average of more than 3,000 new strains of malware every day. This represents a malware epidemic which -- although silent, with little media coverage and no widespread alerts -- is nevertheless dangerous."

The results indicate that signature-based defenses for malware are no longer effective, the research firm said. Some 72 percent of networks with more than 100 workstations -- and 23 percent of home users -- are currently infected with malware, despite having operative antivirus or other signature-based tools in place, PandaLabs said.

Experts at AV-Test, an independent testing organization, also reported skyrocketing incidence of malware yesterday. After a detailed count, the organization said it identified nearly 5.5 million different malware files in 2007 -- more than five times as many as in 2006.