Stephen Withers
Thursday, 11 December 2008 10:09
Opinion and Analysis
Page 2 of 3
There were huge differences in malware levels between countries, with Afghanistan seeing an astounding 76.4 computers per thousand and Japan recording the most modest figure of 1.8 per thousand.
When it comes to trans-Tasman rivalry, New Zealand has a slight edge over Australia, with six per thousand.
Tellingly, infection rates increased in all of the 25 countries with the lowest incidence of malware and in 15 of the 25 highest.
Brazil saw a huge 81.8 percent increase to 23.9 per thousand, possibly as a result of the success of password stealers such as Bancos.
Microsoft suggests two reasons for the increased incidence of malware. One is that there is simply more malware around for computers to pick up; the second is that Microsoft's software is able to detect and clean up a greater variety of malware.
Both sound plausible.
But it also suggests that users are still failing to use or update security software (anti-virus, anti-spyware, etc), or that the companies behind those products (as well as Microsoft and other software vendors) aren't as quick to react to new threats as we need them to be.
What's the Public Enemy Number One of the malware world? Find out on
page 3.
