Malware creation reached record levels during the second quarter of 2013, with Trojans continuing to account for most infections.
This is according to the results of Panda Security's Quarterly Report for Q2 2013, which also shows a worrying increase in malware targeting the Android platform.
According to Panda, Trojans continue to be the most popular threat, accounting for 77.2% of all new malware created and 79.7% of malware infections - that is, almost eight in 10 users are infected with a Trojan.
Further, the number of new malware samples continues to rise. In the second quarter of 2013, 12% more malware was created than in the same period last year, and when the data for the first and second quarters of 2013 is combined, the increase on 2012 reaches17%, says Panda.
In this respect, Trojans accounted for most new threats in circulation (77.2%), followed by worms (11.28%) and viruses (10.29%).
"Cyber criminals use Trojans as a key tool to infect users, continually introducing changes to avoid detection and, in many cases, automating the process of changing the Trojan," explains Jeremy Matthews, country manager for Panda Security SA.
"They use scripts and special tools in order to change the binaries run on victims' computers to evade the signature-based detection used by anti-virus firms," he adds.
In the second quarter of 2013, says Panda, the global infection ratio was 32.77%, up on the first quarter's 31.13%.
As for individual country data, China once again topped the table at 52.36%, followed by Turkey (43.59%) and Peru (42.14%). On the other end of the spectrum, Europe continues to have the lowest infection rates. Sweden (21.03%), Norway (21.14%) and Germany (25.18%) round out the countries with the lowest infection rates. The only non-European country in the top 10 was Japan, in fourth place with 24.21%.
The report also highlights that the quarter started positively with the arrest of the cyber gang leader responsible for the Caberp botnet - a Russian citizen (28) who, together with 20 other individuals, had formed a malware development team.
Despite this positive news, cyber-criminal activity continued to increase, says Panda, adding that cyber criminals often exploit newsworthy events or notable dates in an effort to spread malware to new victims.
This was apparent during the second quarter of 2013, when they used the terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon, and International Workers' Day, 1 May, to spread viruses or compromise government agencies, respectively.
Panda also states that the second quarter of 2013 saw a series of cases that reaffirmed the importance of social networking security. Among them, a group called the 'Syrian Electronic Army' managed to take over the Twitter accounts of several news media with disastrous consequences.
It adds that the Associated Press' primary Twitter account was hacked and used to falsely reports that there had been two explosions in the White House and that President Obama was injured. Immediately, numerous followers of the account helped the story to spread like wildfire, resulting in the Dow Jones index dropping 155 points.
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