Kaspersky Lab Reports That Trojans Accounted For 76% Of All Malicious Programs Recorded In July 2008

Kaspersky Lab, a leading provider of security solutions that protect against viruses, Trojans, worms, spyware, crimeware, rootkits, phishing, hacker attacks and spam, has revealed that Trojans accounted for 76% of all malicious programs recorded on consumers’ computers in July 2008. The figures are the first monthly statistics from the Kaspersky Security Network (KSN), a new technology implemented in Kaspersky Lab’s 2009 consumer products.

Overall, in July 2008, there were 20,704 unique malicious, advertising, and potentially unwanted programs detected on consumers' computers, with data indicating that approximately 20,000 of them were found ‘in the wild’. All the programs recorded in July 2008 can be classified as follows: TrojWare (76%), AdWare (16%), VirWare (4%) and Other MalWare (4%).

David Emm, Senior Technology Consultant at Kaspersky Lab comments, “Trojan variants such as Trojan.Win32.DNSChanger.ech and Trojan-Downloader.WMA.Wimad.n continue to dominate the threat landscape, and will cause major problems for anyone that fails to install effective Internet security on their computer before going online. We are currently adding 1,000 new signatures to our one-million signature strong anti-malware database daily, with Trojans accounting for 91% of these malicious programs.”

The new look, and improved Top Twenty rankings (formerly the Online Scanner Top Twenty and Virus Top Twenty), use data derived from the KSN, a new technology implemented in the home user products, Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 and Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009, launched on 1st July 2008. “Using the Kaspersky Security Network is a highly reliable source of data,” adds Emm. “It not only makes it possible for Kaspersky Lab to get timely information about threats and to track their evolution, but also makes it possible for us to detect unknown threats, and roll out that protection to all of our users, as quickly as possible.”

Kaspersky Lab’s award-winning Kaspersky® Internet Security 2009 provides home PC and laptop users with all-in-one security for worry-free computing. With hourly updates, consistently high detection rates and free telephone technical support, the UK’s 2nd most popular choice for Internet security features a new antivirus engine for dramatically improved protection, performance and reliability - and a new user interface now makes this product even easier to use. Kaspersky® Internet Security 2009 includes a two-way firewall, parental control features - and a virtual keyboard for safer online banking.

The first of the Top Twenty charts below focuses on infected machines, the second chart looks at individual infections and includes those threats that infect multiple (sometimes numerous) objects on the same computer, hence why the list is dominated by viruses and worms.