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Malicious Activity Grew At a Record Pace In 2008
An anonymous reader writes "Symantec announced that malicious code activity continued to grow at a record pace throughout 2008, primarily targeting confidential information of computer users. According to the company's Internet Security Threat Report Volume XIV (PDF), Symantec created more than 1.6 million new malicious code signatures in 2008. This equates to more than 60 percent of the total malicious code signatures ever created by Symantec — a response to the rapidly increasing volume and proliferation of new malicious code threats. These signatures helped Symantec block an average of more than 245 million attempted malicious code attacks across the globe each month during 2008."
Another anonymous reader notes a related report from Verizon (PDF), which says 285 million records were compromised in 2008, more than the total of the previous four years combined.
Wow! First McAfee found out through objective research that spam ruins the environment and now Symantec has an unbiased report showing malicious activity is on the rise!
... "Mortal Kombat: The Game Info" perhaps?
I can not wait for Richard Stallman's report on commercial closed source software costing a record high price in 2008. I mean assuming he comes to that conclusion, of course.
I would just like to point out that the URL for that PDF report indicates it is stored in a directory named 'mktginfo.' I wonder what that stands for
My work here is dung.
Obviously it's a good time to make that security products purchase you've been putting off. You probably want something effective... say a software suite that's been able to block more than 245 million attempted malicious code attacks across the globe each month.
Oh. Wait. I see.
What Operating Systems did this malicious code run on?
davecb5620@gmail.com
Security implementations constantly lag behind the times. Even the pentagon does more reactive rather than proactive implementations. http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/08/2246248 Even if this were to change, it would more likely just cause an escalation of the issue. Even as security gets more complex, so too will the hackers, especially those funded or controlled by organized crime. Your best bet is to use robust security, and never, ever assume that the Internet, or any network, is a safe place.
The musings of just another geek and his junk.
Perhaps McAfee noticed that there are more users running computers with "Black Screens where they type in command lines" -
"i lost my dignity on a slippery wiener"
If code that screws up your computer and resists deinstalling is defined as malicious, then the Symantec and McAfee suites must account for at least half of the malicious code being written.
The reason is simple, people aren't even getting a slap on the wrist.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
I wish people would stop posting crap "news". Its more like a press release announcing a new product that any actual fact.
Its basically a PR stunt that wants them to buy software.
1.6 Million new code..ohhh no whatever shall we do! What they don't tell you is all but a handfull is the same code just modified, and that less than that actually is a threat to common idiots who get infected.
With our Corporate Edition SAV 10 installed, my machine is too slow to effectively run any other malware. I think Symantec did a good job of preventing other malware from getting any disk I/O at all.
even though we're circling the shitter, our products are still move valuable than ever.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Even if it's time to buy, it might be time to buy something else.
I doubt there were really 1.6 million really unique malware in 2008 - many of those are probably just variants. If Symantec has to add sigs for so many variants it means their tech is not so good.
Anyway, I'm not bothering with AV for my WinXP PC. Looking at how much the popular AV software out there slow down PCs, the "cure" seems worse than disease.
IMO, McAfee and Symantec are nearly as bad as being infected by the less nasty trojans. Bloatware.
Kaspersky and Comodo updates take ages (Kaspersky updates are REALLY slow!), AVG realtime scan is slow (and their link scanning thing was stupid), Avira nags a lot (but if you can turn it off or ignore it, it's not so bad I guess).
One day I guess I should test Avast.
I get tons of emails every day promising to enable me to "grow at a record pace." Maybe the two are somehow connected.
This is actually a good strategy to get at some of the Stimulus pork pile. Get a professional grant writer provided by an IT company to draft something up that will convince federal officials that you buying that companies products, will solve the economic crisis.
I read it in the Wall Street Journal a couple of weeks ago, actually.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Well! After this and the report from McAfee that all that ugly, ugly spam is ruining the environment, I'm convinced I need to do something! And since Microsoft told me that Vista is the most secure OS on the planet (and since they invented the computer, you know we should believe them!), all this malicious activity has to be the evil work of that gosh-darn Linux computer I've got back at home! Good thing these companies have wide-reaching, robustly-developed tools to help secure my Lin...
Oh. Huh.
Why does this sound to me like an attempt at an orchestrated astroturfing campaign amongst software giants that either wasn't planned very well or was intended for people far more stupid than us and/or with less long-term memory than we have?
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
TI-86's are the bomb.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
"...says 285 million records were compromised in 2008." How about that. And not a one on a Mac.
If I didn't have absolutely NOTHING to do, I wouldn't be here.
'Signature-based antivirus failing?'
Seriously, I (and many colleagues, friends and relatives) have discovered the delights of simply running Windows as a Limited User. No more signature file downloads. No more zero-day exploits as a result of out-of-date signature files. No more background scanning bogging down your machine. Just a nice, clean system that can only really be compromised as a result of user interaction (trojans, phishing, user-permitted privilege escalation, etc.). My current Windows XP system has been running this way for 2 1/2 years without any infection. AV vendors can f*** right off as far as I'm concerned.
Squirrel!