Almost 72% percent of companies with more than 100 computers have active malware on their network. This data has been collected in a study conducted in the second quarter of this year by PandaLabs, the malware analysis and detection laboratory at Panda Security.
The data was collected between May and July, 2007, and consisted of more than 1,200 firms with security solutions installed. The aim of the study was to uncover the number of ‘protected’ computers infected (home and corporate).
The study also analyzed the type of protection installed on infected computers, revealing that 4.55% of systems protected by Computer Associates were infected, while this figure was 4.3% in the case of Trend Micro, 2.8% for Symantec, 2.28% for McAfee and finally, 0.73% in the case of Panda.
According to the data collected in the study, only 37.45% of users have up-to-date anti-malware software on their computers, the rest are unprotected or have outdated security solutions.
PandaLabs’ study revealed that 22.97% of home computers with an up-to-date security solution have malware, as opposed to 33.28% of unprotected computers.
Adware is the top malware both on corporate (63.04%) and home computers (54.50%). Trojans come second, accounting for 12.57% of malicious code on corporate PCs and 15.46% on home PCs. There has also been a significant increase in banker Trojans, mostly on corporate computers.
The number of rootkits (programs used by cyber-crooks to conceal the processes of malicious code and make their detection more difficult) has increased on home and corporate computers, becoming the third most detected malware type.