A recent report has suggested that there may be as many as five times more variants of malware on the Internet in 2007 (and into 2008) than there was in 2006.  Extremely worrying I’ve no doubt that you agree.  Panda Software is reporting more than 3,000 unique i.d. negative impact software per day.

Another company, AV Test is reporting that there were 5.49 million samples of malicious software in 2007, which is way more than the figure for 2006.  Of course, there’ll be some duplication in that figure just from how the virus is transmitted alone, but by all accounts that’s some serious virusing that’s out there.

Of course, most of the malicious software out there is created to damage or alter the Microsoft Windows platform – so you true geeks out there on Linux and Mac OS are probably going to be safe – at least for now.  However, as viruses get ever more complicated, you’ll get targeted too no doubt.

Naturally, anti-virus software is getting cleverer over time, but the problem is that new viruses require reporting and unless they are found by the AV (anti-virus) company first then there’s a good chance someone’s PC is infected and thus helping to spread the virus.

As an Internet-savvy user it’s easy to point the finger at the inexperienced browser who opens all spam, goes on malware filled sites and generally does all they can (inadvertently) to have their PC infected.  As such, us geeks need to help educate where we can and teach people the wonders of Ad-Aware and AVG amongst other things!

Related posts:

Trojan Targets Microsoft’s AntiSpyware Beta
3 Free Anti-Virus & Anti-Malware Solutions
Grisoft release free version of AVG 8
Half of the pirated Vistas in trackers are malware
Spreading Malicious Programs Slowly

Hope you like that post!

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