PandaLabs Reports Malware Decrease In February; Only 39 Percent Of PCs Were Infected

ORLANDO, Fla., March 3, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Panda Security, the Cloud Security Company, today announced that during the month of February, data gathered by Panda ActiveScan, the company's free online scanner, found that only 39 percent of computers scanned in February were infected with malware, compared to 50 percent last month. Trojans were found to be the most prolific malware threat, responsible for 61 percent of all cases, followed by traditional viruses and worms which caused 11.59 percent and nine percent of cases worldwide, respectively.

These figures have hardly changed compared to similar data collected in January. A graphical representation is available at: http://press.pandasecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/FEB-Malware-ENG.jpg. The most prevalent malware specimens detected this February also remained consistent with last month's findings. The CI.A, Downloader.MDW or Lineage.KDB Trojans continued to spread and infect systems in approximately the same numbers. For a month-to-month comparison chart, please see: http://press.pandasecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/FEB-Tabla-bichos-ENG.jpg.

China, Ukraine, Thailand and Taiwan held the top four highest rates of infection (more than 50 percent of cases). Other countries such as Italy, the U.S. or France recorded rates below 40 percent, but ranked higher than last month. A graph of the breakout by country is available at: http://press.pandasecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/FEB-Infectados-x-pais-ENG.jpg.

More information is available from the PandaLabs Blog.

About PandaLabs

Since 1990, PandaLabs, Panda Security's malware research laboratory, has been working to detect and classify malware in order to protect consumers and companies against new Internet threats. To do so, PandaLabsuses Collective Intelligence, a cloud-based proprietary system that leverages the knowledge gathered from Panda's user community to automatically detect, analyze and classify the more than 63,000 new malware strains that appear every day. This automated malware classification is complemented through the work of an international team with researchers specialized each in a specific type of malware (viruses, worms, Trojans, spyware and other attacks) to provide global coverage. Get more information about PandaLabs and subscribe to its blog news feed at http://www.pandalabs.com. Follow Panda on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Panda_Security and Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/PandaSecurity.