Emsisoft Malwarelympics 2014

Just like last year, Emsisoft’s Malwarelympics infographic decorates winners that don’t necessarily want to be on the podium. This year the United States takes gold  from reigning champion Russia, for the most infected country in the world. In second, Russia takes silver; and in third, Iran takes bronze, just beating out Germany by a few thousand samples.

Aside from the country winners, some other impressive malware Olympians are highlighted. Research indicates that Trojan horses were the year’s largest malware family yet again, with a 10.3% worldwide infection rate. Worms took silver with 4.7%, and exploits rounded out the list at 3.9%, earning the family bronze. This year, viruses were outsiders yet again, with only a 2.1%  infection rate worldwide.

2013 was also a year of new threats from ransomware.  Cryptolocker had a global impact and as yet has proven nearly impossible to unlock.  Like last year, the most attacked operating system is still Windows, which received over 64% of all malware attacks, while attacks on Linux and Mac OS remained barely noticeable.   We also  saw an alarming rise in mobile malware.  In fact, just last year mobile malware exploded by over 600%, and estimates place 92% of that explosion targeting Android devices

Emsisoft CEO Christian Mairoll states: “There are also some internal numbers we are able to announce. Our software saw up to 250 000 new malware samples each day, which is up from last year’s 30,000-50,000 range.  Today, our tools make use of more than 12,000,000 signatures.  That’s on top of the behavior blocking, which prevents unregistered threats.”

This and even more malware trends can be found in the Emsisoft Malwarelympics infographic (direct download).

Editorial teams may link to this graphic and publish it completely or in parts themselves, as long as there is a link back to the original file or to emsisoft.com directly.

Have a Great (Malware-Free) Day!