Fergie's Tech Blog

Panda: ID Theft Trojans on 1 in 100 PCs

Robert McMillan writes on InfoWorld:

Perhaps as many as 10 million PCs are infected with sneaky programs designed to steal sensitive financial information, anti-virus vendor Panda Security reports.

The company found that just over 1 percent of systems belonging to the 67 million people who tried out its free ActiveScan test site last year were infected with malicious software designed to help thieves steal sensitive information about victims. If 1 percent of the world's 1 billion computers are infected, that would mean that this kind of software is on 10 million PCs worldwide, the company reports.

These identity-theft-focused Trojan programs are becoming more sophisticated and more common. Panda's detection rate jumped 800 percent between the middle of 2008 and the end of the year, according to Carlos Zevallos, a security evangelist with the security company. "The report shows a very sobering number," he said. "We don't want it to seem that it is a hopeless battle [but] all businesses innovate, and crimeware is a business."

posted by Fergie @ 3/09/2009 03:34:00 PM