At FixMyPCFree.com, the majority of our customers come from the United States. And now we know why: according to a new report, approximately 1 in 3 PCs in the US is infected with malware, making it one of the worst countries in the developed world.
That report comes from antivirus maker PandaLabs, which recently published its Quarterly Report for Q1. That report analyzes security events and incidents that took place between January and March 2015.
The report determined that the global average for malware infections was 36.51%, with America’s infection rate standing at around 34.03%.
Some of the important statistics from that report include:
-Over 225,000 new types of malware strains were discovered per day in the first quarter of 2015
-On one record-breaking day, the virus software discovered 500,000 types of malware strains
-To put that number in perspective, it’s 40% higher than 2014’s numbers, where approximately 205,000 new malware strains were discovered every day
Of course, that doesn’t mean that virus makers were eagerly programming new malware hundreds of thousands of times every day. Instead, most of this malware was a variation on existing malware. Virus creators would slightly modify existing malware in an attempt to evade virus scanners.
Trojans and CryptoLocker Are the Biggest Threats Worldwide
Worldwide PC users face some big threats online. The report discovered some of the following statistics about modern malware:
-Approximately 72.75% of all online threats are Trojans, and Trojans account for 76.05% of total malware infections
-CryptoLocker remains the world’s most significant threat, as ten oil and gas companies fell victim to these attacks during the first quarter of 2015
-Attackers in these attacks didn’t actually use any kind of malware. Instead, they executed legitimate files recurrently, which helped these attacks avoid security software
-The next most common attacks included social network scams and mobile malware, including one popular scam that promised people a free $500 Zara gift card on Facebook
-Android continued to be a hotspot for mobile malware attacks, with a growing number of attacks occurring not through the app store, but through SMS messaging
China Still has the Highest Risk of Infection
The report broke down the risk of infection in various countries around the world. The top three most-infected countries had brutal numbers, including:
-China: 48.01% of PCs are infected
-Turkey: 43.33%
-Peru: 42.18%
If you see a computer when you’re walking around China, you might as well flip a coin to determine whether or not that computer is infected with a virus or not.
It wasn’t all bad news, however, as many developed countries were observed to have extremely low infection rates. All of the following countries were at the lower end of the scale:
One in Three PCs in America is Infected
Surprisingly, America was at the bottom of the scale in terms of its infection rate. America’s 34.03% was still better than the worldwide average, although not by much (36.51% was the worldwide average).
That means approximately one in three PCs in America is infected with some type of malware.
The PandaLabs report claimed that targeted attacks on businesses are some of the fastest growing virus attacks in America. Virus makers will target a specific business, emailing employees to try to gain access to internal networks. Even novice hackers can use these methods to steal sensitive information or money.
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