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McAfee Sees 400,000 Security Threats By 2008
David Utter
Staff Writer
2006-07-07
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
The computer security firm logged the 200,000th entry in its database of threats, and predicts it will grow to 400,000 in two years or less.
McAfee noted in a blog entry that it took 18 years for its database to see the entry of malware threat number 100,000. Less than a couple of years later, that number doubled to 200,000.
"Although security awareness continues to improve, hackers and malicious code authors are releasing threats faster than ever before, with approximately 200% more malicious threats per day than two years ago," said Stuart McClure, senior vice president, global research and threats at McAfee.
McAfee cited bots as the primary cause in this growth. But exploits of vulnerabilities, and downloaders that put malware on PCs, run a close second to those bots. Email attacks have not increased as much over the past couple of years.
By the time 2006 ends, McAfee expects to have added 60,000 threats to its database. Current trends will see the total threats increase to 400,000 by 2008.
Money remains the primary incentive for malware writers. Until the problem is addressed in countries where it flourishes, the profit motive will continue to influence malicious coders to create new computer threats.
The obvious issue with this is if a country in question actually backs such activities. Diplomacy may not be enough to solve that challenge.
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Tag: Malware
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About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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