Seasonal surge in spyware

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The current global surge in spyware and adware, and equally marked drop in virus infections, may be down to seasonal factors says a security industry veteran.

Eldar Tuvey, co-founder of ScanSafe, says his firm's latest Global Threat Report shows that spyware and adware were up 21 per cent in September, while viruses decreased 47 per cent.

"There is seasonality to Web viruses and spyware," said Tuvey. "We fully anticipate a jump in malware as consumers go online to start their holiday shopping."

He pointed out that in August, Web viruses rose 23 per cent while spyware decreased 12 per cent.

He warned those responsible for corporate networks not to be lulled into a sense of complacency by the apparent tail-off in virus risk, but to continue to take 'necessary precautions to protect themselves from Web threats'.

He says the surprising drop in viruses happened despite recent high-profile Microsoft vulnerabilities.

"With all the recent attention on Microsoft vulnerabilities and zero-day exploits, we thought we'd see an increase," Tuvey said. "Despite the hype, a mass outbreak did not occur in September. In fact, none of the top 10 Web viruses blocked by ScanSafe during the month were exploits of Microsoft vulnerabilities uncovered in September, including the much publicized Vector Markup Language vulnerability," he added.

Tuvey said eight per cent of spyware blocks used by network managers were in place to prevent already infected PCs from 'calling home' or transmitting outbound to a spyware domain.

"An effective anti-spyware solution should filter both inbound and outbound Web traffic, to identify already infected PCs for remediation and to block them from being further compromised," he said.

Rival Internet security firm Webroot has just released its own report on spyware, claiming that infection rates are at their highest since 2004.

Webroot found in Q3 that 89 per cent of PCs are infected with an average of 30 pieces of spyware - a figure slightly up from the first quarter of 2006. Towards the end of that year, says Webroot, it looked as if the spyware menace might be in remission, a hope that has proved well wide of the mark.

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