I guess you could be forgiven for giving up the fight against cybercrime when the world seems to be overwhelmed with malware like Trojans and viruses that are able to anticipate our responses and always appear a few steps ahead of us.

Security firm McAfee recently confirmed what many of us already knew. Things are getting worse, cyber crooks are getting better, and new malicious codes seem to emerge faster than new users registering on Facebook.

According to McAfee’s most recent study, malware is now at an all-time high. Only a few years ago, I was reporting about how bad things were when more than 250,000 different types of malware had been identified. But in just the first six months of this year, McAfee claims to have detected more than 10 million new variations of malware.

That’s a staggering number, with McAfee recording an average of 55,000 new types of malware every single day. And the most common type of malware identified during this period included password stealing Trojans and worms specifically targeting Facebook.

This surge tells us a number of things:

• Cyber crooks continue to churn out viruses, Trojans, worms and other malware for one simple reason – they work.
• The security industry, businesses, and users have to work even harder to stay ahead of this stampede of malware.
• Even though many of the malware samples are variations of previous versions and therefore not entirely unique, it still presents a mammoth task to create defenses against each new variation.
• Computer users need to take precautions by updating antivirus software, firewalls, installing antikeylogging software, and never clicking on links.

RELATED STORY (PDF): McAFEE’S COMPLETE REPORT ON THREATS OF 2010

http://www.mcafee.com/us/local_content/reports/q22010_threats_report_en.pdf

Related posts:

1. In the Headlines: 2010 a Bumper Year for Spam and Scams