According to a report conducted by PandaLabs, this represents a 40% increase over Q1 2014 and is well above the average for the entire year – at 205 000 new malware samples per day.
The first months of 2015 were dominated by ransomware attacks, especially CryptoLocker and it is safe to say that ransomware has become cyber-criminals preferred method to make money from companies stolen information. Ten companies in the oil and gas maritime transportation sector, fell victim to this type of attack, as revealed by Panda Security.
Other popular attack methods exploited over the past quarter, include social networks scams and mobile malware. One of the most notable scams made use of a fake USD 500 Zara gift card giveaway on Facebook to trick users.
Android was the main target for mobile malware attacks, this time through malicious SMS messages. The average number of infected PCs across the globe stands at 36.51%, up 6% compared to 2014. China once again led this ranking at 48.01%, followed by Turkey at 43.33% and Peru at 42.18%.
The list of least infected countries is dominated by European countries. Norway remains the leading country with the least infected PCs at 22.07%. Other countries with a malware infection rate below the worldwide average include Denmark (28.18%), Finland (28.59%), Venezuela (33.35%) and US (34.03%).
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