6,000 new malware pieces everyday

With malware makers aiming to create as many as 6,000 new pieces of malware per day, the growth of malicious software continues to accelerate. Consider this — internet security company McAfee identified 1.5 million unique pieces of malware in 2008. Malware, or malicious software, comprises unwanted software like computer viruses, worms, trojan horses, spyware, among others.

“In 2009, till now, there have been about 140,000 unique malware — about three times what was observed for the same period in 2008. Though we haven’t observed a significant rise in malware originating from India, the subcontinent has shown the highest percentage increase in spam, contributing nearly seven per cent of the global spam,” said Prabhat Singh, senior director, APAC-Japan, McAfee Avert Labs.

Singh says machines running pirated copies of operating systems or legacy security software are at a higher risk of getting infected.

Malware is becoming increasingly sophisticated and often uses advanced techniques to bypass standard signatures employed by security software.