11 Jan 2010

Malware growth 'will be exponential'

Malware problems are set to grow for businesses during 2010, it has been predicted.

Javier Merchan of Panda Security said the amount of malware in circulation will continue to grow exponentially, with the coming 12 months likely to see the largest-ever growth in Trojans, viruses and hacking attacks in a single year.

He commented: "Hackers are no longer interested in fame but money. Cybercriminals are making more and more samples in order to infect as many users as possible and also to avoid anti-virus detections."

Mr Merchen added the majority of new attacks will be designed exclusively for financial gain.

According to predictions made by IT management software company CA, another big computer worm like Conficker - a self-replicating computer program - is likely in 2010.

In addition, denial-of-service attacks will increase in popularity as a means to make a political statement, with popular websites like Twitter and Facebook likely to fall victim once again.