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Which US Cities Have The Worst Malware Infection Rates? (techrepublic.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the spreading-like-a-virus dept.

A new report from Enigma Software Group identifies the American cities with abnormally high infection rates for malware. An anonymous reader quotes TechRepublic: In 2016, Tampa, Orlando, and St. Louis each had malware infection rates per capita more than five times the national average -- the highest in the U.S., the report found. Those same three cities were also at the top of the list of highest infection rates in 2015... ESG compiled malware detection data from its SpyHunter anti-spyware software in the 100 largest cities in the US in all of 2016.
Two Ohio cities also made it into the top ten for malware infection rates -- Cleveland and Cincinnati -- as well as Washington D.C. (with an infection rate 242% higher than the national average). But the infection rates drop noticeably after the top 10, with Miami (at #14) the last city with an infection rate more than double the national average. Interestingly, the top 35 cities include major high-tech centers like Seattle, Austin, Boston, and San Jose.

52 comments

  1. apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Waiting patiently for the apk sales pitch.............

    1. Re:apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I want access to the raw data before I accept the claims of a cybersecurity form touting its products in the article. Open data science or shut-up.

    2. Re:apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Especially since that cybersecurity firm is based in Tampa, FL

    3. Re:apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This. These people are trying to sell AV products and will present their data to tell the story they want to tell.

      You would be surprised how often "news" sources royally screw up demographics with respect to St. Louis. This is because St. Louis city and St. Louis county are different entities. (They 'divorced' from each other over a century ago.)

      Those St. Louis tech companies listed?
        Suddenlink: Creve Coeur, Missouri.
        World Wide Tech: Maryland Heights, Missouri
        Graybar: St Louis County (Unincorporated)

      St Louis City proper, which does not include the above, has only 320,000 people. The greater St. Louis area, which does include the above, has almost 3 million. Confuse the two and your per capita demographics suddenly are way off.

      Also it is common for people in the surrounding counties to just use "St. Louis" as their city when filling out forms or sending mail. I fully expect most people in Maryland Heights Missouri would specify their city as "St. Louis" when registering their anti-virus product.

  2. That's easy by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · · Score: 5, Funny

    I head Redmond, Oregon is almost completely infested with Windows 10.

    1. Re:That's easy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      %s/Oregon/s/Washington

  3. Florida by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Lol. They're so stupid.

    1. Re:Florida by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1, Informative

      Lol. They're so stupid.

      That's offensive and racist against white people.

      Floridians aren't stupid, they just have alternative intelligence.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    2. Re:Florida by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you have any non-bigoted jokes?

    3. Re:Florida by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · · Score: 2

      Actually, it's "Floridiots".

    4. Re:Florida by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I was born and raised in Florida (born in 1946, a post World War II 'baby boomer'). I left in 1984. The environment was already being trashed, and it's gotten a lot worse from what I hear.

      I grew up in Broward County, main city being Ft Lauderdale, where the population was expanding rapidly so everything was new, and a lot of people were from 'up north', which may have made a difference. The public schools back then were, I think, actually pretty good (but segregated, along with drinking fountains, restrooms, restaurants.) It was also kind of parochial. In school history books I'd read something that might mention in one sentence "Catholics, Protestants, and Jews", and I assumed Jews were just another, relatively minor, Christian sect. I think when I was about 15 I began to figure out they were the people from the Old Testament.

      In the 60s we had a lot of Cubans fleeing Castro, who mostly went to Miami, the rival city. (The sense of rivalry may have been one-sided, I'm not sure if Miami really noticed us.)

      I recommend reading some of the Travis McGee novels by John D. MacDonald, or, more recently, books by Carl Hiaasen to get an idea of what it was like. The Travis McGee books are especially good noirish type "men's adventure" novels. MacDonald was well educated and it shows, even though Trav is a tough-guy drop-out. The books start out with Trav on his boat in Ft Lauderdale, but often he ends up going somewhere else. In the first book, The Deep Blue Good-bye he stays firmly on Florida ground though, with the denouement in the Gulf Stream.

      I know that while I feel some nostalgia for the place, I can't go back. It's changed so much.

    5. Re:Florida by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, he's a real fucking piece of shit.

  4. Interesting... Tampa by admin7087 · · Score: 1

    Tampa, FL, is also the city from which I get the highest number of invitations for fake conferences.

  5. Summary Omits Facts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The summary omits the operating system responsible for the majority of malware infections: Windows.

    1. Re:Summary Omits Facts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course it does. Windows is on MOST COMPUTERS so of course it would have the most infections. Duh! On the other hand, I wonder how many of these just happen to have large clusters of VPN exit nodes and the copyright violators using those nodes (and are infected) are in other cities altogether?

    2. Re: Summary Omits Facts by UnknowingFool · · Score: 1

      Stop being such an apologist. If you didn't read the report, it was based on data captured by ESG's SpyHunter software which is only Windows based. To note: ESG does not make SpyHunter for MacOS, iOS, Android, or Linux which some of them outnumber Windows in terms of devices. So either ESG is ignoring valuable markets or they don't exist.

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    3. Re: Summary Omits Facts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Spyhunter IS a malware extremely hard to uninstall and terrorising its users by fake or very exaggerated threats. So I would not trust anything coming from Enigma Software Group anyway.

  6. Older people less astute with technology? by schwit1 · · Score: 2

    Grandma is less likely to update programs and is easier to trick into clicking on malware links.

    1. Re:Older people less astute with technology? by sumdumass · · Score: 4, Interesting

      This is somewhat insanely true.

      I was just given an old computer to "remove anything that needs removed to make it safe to throw away". It was about 3 years old and had so many pop ups that they just purchased a new computer. I told them I could probably fix the pop ups if everything else worked ok. She said whatever, I can have it if I could fix it.

      I started diving into this system thinking it would be infested with a bunch of malware, viruses and whatnot. Outside of tracking cookies, I couldn't find anything. The pop ups were to update java, their HP software for the printer they threw away when it stopped printing after 6 months of no use, some brother software saying there was updates and a bunch of notifications from games and other software saying there was updates available. She was using an older version of internet explorer which likely allowed a lot of pop ups when surfing the web. She essentially purchased another computer because she didn't understand crap needed updated from time to time or how to update it or that other web browsers exist without all the issues some have.

      It isn't a high end computer but it isn't a bottom of the barrel system either. Its free outside of updating all the software and removing the preinstalled advertising crap that originally came with it so I have nothing to complain about. Just makes you wonder about what people are thinking.

    2. Re:Older people less astute with technology? by Solandri · · Score: 2

      Grandma is also less likely to own a computer.

      Really, they should've compared the ratio of per capita malware infection rate, to per capita computer ownership rate. That'll give you malware infection rate per computer, which is the stat you really want.

    3. Re:Older people less astute with technology? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      She uses email, logs onto AOL and plays games bundled with the operating system.

    4. Re:Older people less astute with technology? by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      I don't think grandma is the only problem. San Jose is high on the list, and I think it's because we have far too many ignorant techies who are obsessed with getting the latest new fad, going to every possible web site that's cool, getting all the latest gadgets, using the latest apps, etc. Never mind the ignorant techies actually making the security flaws in the first place.

    5. Re:Older people less astute with technology? by luis_a_espinal · · Score: 1

      Grandma is also less likely to own a computer. .

      That was true probably 10 years ago. This, nope, not true anymore.

    6. Re:Older people less astute with technology? by Talderas · · Score: 1

      San Jose is basely higher than the national average but don't forget that a quarter of the city's population is of Mexican descent and San Jose is the city with the largest Vietnamese population outside of Vietnam. There's a lot of lower income families in the city and I think that the infection rate can probably be correlated with any of income (you can download this for free), education, or age as these are all factors that would lead to higher risk of being infected in the first place.

      --
      "Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
    7. Re:Older people less astute with technology? by omnichad · · Score: 1

      And you cleaned it up instead of wiping/reinstalling Windows? Even though there was nothing important on it anymore? That seems like an awful lot of work with no reward.

    8. Re:Older people less astute with technology? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I told them I could probably fix the pop ups if everything else worked ok. She said whatever, I can have it if I could fix it.

      As it should be. Computer geeks get free/cheap computers from people who fumble them. Gearheads get cheap cars in a similiar manner - perform some repair that is cheap in parts but costly in labor or require some specific knowledge. And so on, for just about anything.

    9. Re:Older people less astute with technology? by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      First, if you know what you are doing, wiping and reinstalling windows takes more time than cleaning an infested computer. But that wasn't the take you should have received from this. But what you should have taken away should be that someone was throwing the computer away because they didn't understand or comprehend the underlying issue with it and more or less thought it was worn out like a pair of socks that start getting holes in them.

      As for no reward,. Some people like the challenge of cleaning the systems and some people like keeping them running. I have a couple systems that are more trouble than they are worth that have no practical application in today's environment but have fun messing with them.

    10. Re:Older people less astute with technology? by omnichad · · Score: 1

      First, if you know what you are doing, wiping and reinstalling windows takes more time than cleaning an infested computer.

      More clock time maybe, but very little clicking or watching. In this case, they were also wanting to eliminate personal files and remove their profiles, and possibly any licensed software that they've moved to another computer - this is a computer that was being repurposed for another person, not the original owner. All the Windows cruft from years of usage being gone is reason enough alone for wiping in that case. You can remove the virus first if you want the challenge.

    11. Re:Older people less astute with technology? by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure if you are aware of this or not, but formatting a hard drive and reinstalling the operating system doesn't remove the information any better than simply deleting it. It's a zero sum gain unless you use a program to specifically write over the deleted or formatted information. There is no difference and it can be recovered easily in both cases (actually easier with a format because the file name isn't altered like when you delete a file).

      There is generally both more time and input in reinstalling verses removing most infections with the exception of some rootkits. Every toolkit you need is mostly automated.

      But it doesn't matter much anyways. This was a computer she wanted to safely _throw_away, not re-purpose for another user. This might be the slight difference in our line of thinking. If it was going to another user, I would probably use something like DBAN to somewhat securely erase the disk then a reinstall without worrying about the disinfection. It gets a bit tricky in what you do when windows is stored on a hidden partition verses having a cd to use if no one wants to spring for a refurbishment version of windows. But seeing how I was already tasked with removing the information, I already have access to anything on the system before any deletes or formating or anything. It's a trust issue I guess.

    12. Re:Older people less astute with technology? by omnichad · · Score: 1

      So you have to do a full wipe anyway...aren't you agreeing with me? You can't safely throw it away without doing so.

    13. Re:Older people less astute with technology? by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      To throw it away or give it to someone you do not trust- yes. A full wipe is needed.

      But you are missing the point. It didn't need thrown away, it needed user education.

  7. Do humans count as malware? by Freischutz · · Score: 1

    Do humans count as malware? Because if they do Washington DC with all it's politicians, lobbyists, lawyers and special interest groups would win hands down.

    1. Re:Do humans count as malware? by Notabadguy · · Score: 1

      Yes they count. Some giant anti-virus needs to clean and reboot that system.

    2. Re:Do humans count as malware? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

      Yes they count. Some giant anti-virus needs to clean and reboot that system.

      The anti-virus is called President Donald John Trump.

    3. Re:Do humans count as malware? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Replacing politicians with Wallstreet billionaires, a bunch of generals and some white supremacy nazis... could that antivirus be McAfee?

    4. Re: Do humans count as malware? by Phil+Urich · · Score: 1

      Sounds about as effective as McAfee, certainly...

      --
      I remember sigs. Oh, a simpler time!
    5. Re:Do humans count as malware? by omnichad · · Score: 1

      Ah, so he spends a ton of money on advertising, preying on the weak-minded with trumped up threats, and doing little if anything to solve real problems?

  8. Where's the correlation to age? by Notabadguy · · Score: 1

    I was expecting to see a correlation or statistic also pointing out the median age of city residents with a trend towards higher infection rates among older population.

    1. Re:Where's the correlation to age? by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      The 1980-90's that saw a lot of people not been able to buy a brand new computer often or enjoy a modem, bulletin board system or later broadband in their communities.
      Internet was new, expensive and a new computer was just not needed. Work or school had a few computers.
      Entire generations only had computers at work or for a few hours to study with education applications.
      When computers became cheap more people got a consumer OS at just enjoyed a few games or needed work related applications.
      Vast areas with abandoned consumer OS equipment later got flooded later with small downloaded games packed with malware or got malware from ads as the internet became fun.
      Computers and broadband, modems did not get used in every part of the USA equally or over the same decade.
      Phone systems often only supported modems or voice. Broadband was expensive in areas with few very low cost providers.
      Upgrades to phone networks that allowed cheap, fast broadband products was not always in the same decade as a lot of other states or city areas.
      Updates and security would have been seen as something that slowed down a computer or that stopped needed games and applications from working again.
      Finding a few $1000 every few years or less to swap out all hardware and software was not an option for a lot of people.
      Also recall the social pressure to escape from poverty. Become a medical doctor, lawyer. Putting the same effort into computing was not a dream escape for the poor families with the ability to get a full scholarship.
      Computing was something done at work, school or for games. Working with computers was not the same as the community standing of a doctor or lawyer setting their own hours or moving into a better community and escaping poverty.
      A family in poverty buying a lot of new computers, modems for one person to become a computer technician or as a hobby was not an option given 1980's, 1990's wages and hardware costs.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  9. Useless by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Its as bad as 'cities with more crime'. Look, its the same cities! ( hint, more people = larger amounts of everything.. .geesh )

  10. Elderly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm sure it has something to do with all the elderly that retire in Florida. They aren't as computer savvy.

  11. Which US cities have worst malware infection rates by khz6955 · · Score: 1

    The cities with the most Microsoft Windows desktop computers.

  12. Surprisingly? Why wouldn't they? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Rockstar code heroes are among the most incompetent people on the planet when it comes to proper systems security.

  13. Well of course St Louis has issues by SuperKendall · · Score: 2

    It has to drag down the people of St Louis having a giant arch named after a failed computer manufacturer.

    As for the other two - Florida. 'nuff said.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  14. Can we overlay this map with one of stolen pcs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Seems to me that if you have a stolen computer you don't care so much what it's infested with, or whether it is infecting its neighbors.

    Also since it is less likely to be hidden behind a firewall/router and inaccessible to these researchers.

  15. Then THIS is exactly what they need by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

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    * Computer Science as a field & my livelyhood from 1994-2008 professionally was VERY good to me!

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    APK

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  17. AV + security companies help ME w/ hosts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

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  18. 8 experts speak for me & hosts... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

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