Phil Muncaster
vnunet.com, 14 Apr 2009

Last year saw another staggering rise in malicious software, according to the latest EMEA Internet Security Threat Report from Symantec.

The security firm logged over 1.6 million new threats, and warned that companies may be at increasing risk from attacks on smartphones.

Symantec's annual study is one of the most extensive in the industry, using statistics from the firm's own products and services as well as third-party data from over 200 countries. This edition identified a rise in malware attacks of more than 200 per cent from 2007, and a 47 per cent surge in botnet activity with a total of 5,147 new 'command and control' servers.

Trojans were the most common form of malware, accounting for 66 per cent of the top 50 potential infections in EMEA, as criminals sought to steal financial and other data to sell online.

Continued @vnunet