NOW READ THIS
("Security Advisory")
Submitted by: Bill Hickey
NCVA List Master
NRT-0456 One Million New Viruses Expected in 2008:
Finnish security firm F-Secure estimates a total of one million new viruses will be "born"
this year, according to statistics published by the firm and cited in an online press report.
According to F-Secure, 25,000 malicious programs PER DAY have made their way onto the firm's
servers. Last year service provider AV-Test had registered viruses at the same daily rate,
but from all antivirus vendors and other sources such as honeypots. According to AV Test
General Manager Andreas Marx, in 13 hours in one day recently, 21,439 unique samples - viruses
with a unique MD5 "fingerprint" - already had made their way onto the company's servers. While
Marx originally expected his complete virus archive to contain a total of 7 million samples by
the end of 2008, by mid-April the total is now anticipated to exceed 10 million. As F-Secure
gathers around 25,000 samples per day including MD5 non-uniques, the over 20,000 unique samples
accumulated by Marx in 13 hours suggests that individual antivirus vendors each acquire only
a fraction of the total number of viruses in circulation. F-secure's analysis also suggests
a significant shift in the ways in which viruses are spread. Trojans in email attachments are
becoming less common, while attacks on the web using drive-by downloads are increasing. The
use of rootkit techniques to hide viruses is becoming more prevalent.
(heise-online.co.uk 02APR08)