The malware writers are trying to keep the vendors busy while they target malware attacks, such as specific threats sent to specific users for theft purposes, she added.
“Figures may vary from one company and other, of course, but undoubtedly the Trojan hordes, due to their capability to steal passwords, give the creators the chance of stealing money,” Panda Software Labs’ Sanabria said.
The stats arrive at a time when the “classical” viruses (file virus, macro virus, etc) are considered almost dead by firms such as Panda. Ron O’Brien, senior security analyst at Sophos, explained to internetnews.com that the Mac statement was made in the context of whether the end user is committed to the effort or time to manage and maintain a safe and protected Windows environment.
“The introduction of new security measures, including some planned for Vista, may slow down the rate at which machines are impacted by malware, O’Brien said. Microsoft, for its part, said it believes Windows customers are becoming increasingly more secure, thanks in part to Microsoft’s Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT). Microsoft claims in a recent report that since it released MSRT, over 270 million unique computers ran the tool for about 2.7 billion executions of the removal tool.
“It’s important to remember that no software is 100 percent secure,” a Microsoft spokesperson told internetnews.com.
http://www.internetnews.com/security/article.php/3618381