Ever wonder how much malware is being detected daily? In 2016, that number is 323,000 as detected by Kaspersky Lab.
This is an increase of 13,000 from the amount in 2015, and a significant jump from the 70,000 files per day identified in 2011.
“We determined this year’s malware growth was mostly caused by a huge increase in the number of downloaders distributed via email,” said Vyacheslav Zakorzhevsky, head of the anti-malware team at Kaspersky Lab. “In most cases these downloaders deliver ransomware on the attacked machines. In 2016, the number of these malicious programs was 3.6 times bigger than in 2015—the result of a cybercriminal’s efforts to hide malware from detection by security solutions. In addition, our constantly improving machine-learning technologies allow us to detect and discover even unknown threats.”
Woburn, MA – December 6, 2016 – According to Kaspersky Lab, the number of new malware files detected by its products in 2016 increased to 323,000 per day. This is an increase of 13,000 from the amount in 2015, and a significant jump from the 70,000 files per day identified in 2011.
The Kaspersky Lab cloud malware database, includes discoveries by Astraea—a machine-learning based malware analysis system working inside the Kaspersky Lab infrastructure. Over a fifth of the malicious objects included in the cloud database were discovered and identified as malicious by Astraea. The database now carries a billion malicious objects, including viruses, Trojans, backdoors, ransomware and advertisement applications and their components.
The percentage of malware discovered and added automatically to the Kaspersky Lab cloud database by Astraea has been growing steadily over the last five years: from 7.53 percent in 2012, to 40.5 percent in December 2016. The proportion is growing in line with the number of new malicious files discovered daily by Kaspersky Lab experts and detection systems. This has increased from 70,000 files per day in 2011 to 323,0001 per day in 2016.
“One billion unique malicious files is a remarkable milestone. It shows the scale of the cyber-criminal underground, which has developed from several small forums offering customized malicious tools, to the mass production of malware and tailored cyber-criminal services,” said Zakorzhevsky. “It also highlights the quality and evolution of our automated malware analysis technologies. Out of these billion files, more than 200 million have been added by the Astraea machine-learning system. Our advanced systems now not only detect the vast majority of known malware we get on a daily basis, but also discover unknown threats. Although the remaining 800 million files have been added by other internal detection systems, or by experts, the contribution to the Kaspersky Lab cloud database by machine-learning systems is substantial and will continue to grow.”
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