Tech Bitz

You would think that with all the big companies such as McAfee, Norton, Avast, Microsoft, etc. working on security software, that the problem with computer viruses, malware and other software nasties would be a thing of the past, or at least something you don’t have to worry about so much any more.

The truth would scare the bits right out of your computer if it knew what was out there and had any say in the matter!

Recent tests and analysis by Anti-Virus testing and monitoring organizations have shown that the threat from Viruses, Trojans, Spyware and other ‘Malware’ programs are increasing at an incredible rate.

According to AV-Test.org - a German Anti-Virus testing and monitoring organization - the threat from malicious software has never been greater. Approximately 5.5 Million harmful software programs were released worldwide in 2007.

According to AV-Test, this has forced Anti-Virus companies to analyze an average of 15,000 and 20,000 new and different threats to computer security every single day last year. That is nearly 4 times as many threats that faced cyber citizens in 2006 and approximately 15 times more than in 2005, as can be seen in the graph below. (Click on graph for larger view)

The New Face of Computer Viruses, Spyware and Other Malicious Software.

AV-Test.org reports that they have already identified over 1 Million new online threats in the first two months of 2008.

According to anti-virus monitoring and tracking companies, the threat from spyware is likely to rise even faster in the near future. Computer security experts in tracking the malware threat say that this is because the people and organizations that are creating these new viruses and spyware programs are no longer lone hackers trying to come up with that latest way to annoy people and companies.

The new threats are from full fledged companies that are hiring highly skilled computer programmers to develop the new programs.

These companies are concentrating on exploiting weaknesses in computer systems in order to do everything from tracking online web browsing behavior in order to place more targeted pop up ads on your computer screen to stealing your financial and personal information straight off your computers hard disk drive.

This Isn’t Your Dad’s Computer Virus - The New Generation of Computer Viruses and Malware

The new programs that these companies are developing are also especially dangerous because unlike previous versions of spyware, trojans and viruses; which were built and programmed to annoy, harass and destroy. These new versions are being developed specifically to remain very quiet on the computers and systems that they infect while stealthily performing their tasks.

It is no longer good enough to say “well I don’t have any system problems, my computer seems to be running fast enough and there aren’t any problems with pop-up windows” and believe that there is no spyware or viruses on your computer. The new breed of malware is specifically designed to avoid producing these distinct “my computer is infected” warning signs.

Making the malware harder to detect is only one of the strategies that the software programmers that are designing these programs are using. They are also learning and developing techniques for making their trojans, spyware and viruses harder to remove completely once they have been detected. Bits and pieces of the virus are being stored in multiple locations on a computer hard disk drive and are infecting many more sections of a program or application than ever before.

This has the effect of making the malware acting more like a cancer than strickly a virus. If even the tiniest part of the computer program is left on the victim computer, it can potentially download and install a completely new version of itself after the anti-virus program is finished scanning the pc. The viruses have not only been programmed to be self replicating, they are also being programmed to be self healing as well.

These new spyware programs are threateing companies, both large and small, as well as individuals, community organizations such as churches and volunteer groups as well as governments on a federal, state and local level.

Check back here at Tech-Bitz.com tomorrow for additional information on the threats posed by spyware as well as what can and is being done protect your computer from the ever increasing flood of harmful computer programs on the web.

Filed under: Internet, Security, Spyware Watch, Tech News