New Virus Count Nearly Triples
The number of new viruses has almost tripled in the last six months, an anti-virus vendor said Tuesday, the spike fed by hackers releasing scads of variants to overwhelm defenses.
According to Panda Software, which is headquartered in Spain but has U.S. offices in Glendale, Calif., the count of new viruses has increased 278 percent since the third quarter of 2004.
"Until now, daily updates were considered sufficient for keeping a computer protected from new viruses, and it is exactly this belief that the creators of malicious code are now looking to exploit," said Luis Corrons, the director of Panda's research lab, in a statement. "If they can launch many variants, those that appear after the user has incorporated the new vaccines to their anti-malware solution will have no less than 24 hours to infiltrate the system before the following update."
The trend is a continuation of one seen in early 2004, when the writers of Bagle, MyDoom, and Netsky engaged in a back-and-forth battle, sometimes releasing multiple versions in a single day.
