Microsoft Report: Worms Rise, New Vulnerabilities Decline

[Howell, Paul]

At
http://www.darkreading.com/vulnerability_management/security/attacks/sho
wArticle.jhtml?articleID=221500012

Microsoft Report: Worms Rise, New Vulnerabilities Decline
The new Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (SIR) found worm
infections nearly doubled, vulnerability counts down by nearly one-third
in the first half of 2009
Nov 02, 2009 | 05:56 PM

By Kelly Jackson Higgins
DarkReading

Worms have made a major comeback, and the total number of newly reported
vulnerabilities industry-wide has dropped dramatically, according to
findings in Microsoft's new security report published today.

Version 7 of Microsoft's Security Intelligence Report (SIR) -- which
drew its data from over 450 million Windows PCs worldwide from January
to June 2009 -- found that worms are now the number two threat, behind
Trojans, and up from the number five slot in the second half of 2008.
"We're seeing a resurgence of worms: they've risen by 98.4 percent,"
says Jeff Williams, principal architect for Microsoft's Malware
Protection Center. "This is due to Conficker and TaterF, a lesser known
[worm] but almost as prevalent as Conficker."

And Trojans, including rogue antivirus, remain the most commonly found
threat on infected machines. But rogue AV is also declining somewhat:
Microsoft cleaned up 13.4 million computers with rogue AV in the first
half of this year, down from 16.8 million in the second half of 2008,
according to the report.

[...]


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