61% of new threats are banker Trojans

PandaLabs published its report analyzing the IT security events and incidents of the first three months of the year.

The amount of new malware in circulation has continued to increase. In this first quarter, the most prevalent category was once again banker Trojans, accounting for 61% of all new malware.

The second placed category was traditional viruses (15.13%) despite having practically disappeared in recent years.

The infection ranking, generated from data supplied by the Panda ActiveScan free online scanner, sees Spain once again in first place, with over 35% of computers infected. Then come the USA, Mexico and Brazil.

On a similar note, 2010 has so far seen considerable activity related with other areas of IT security, with the dismantling of Mariposa, one of the largest botnets known to date, the detection of malware in devices distributed by Vodafone, and the discovery of a number of critical vulnerabilities.

Popular topics such as Apple’s iPad or Facebook applications have once again been used in BlackHat SEO attacks this quarter. Similarly, social networks continue to be used to distribute malware by tricking users, a trend that will continue throughout the year.