Security roundup: 20% of all Malware ever created appeared in 2013

This week’s roundup takes a look at the surge in malware and how taxpayers and Saint Patrick’s Day celebrators have been targeted.

Panda Labs has revealed that 20 per cent of all Malware ever created appeared in 2013.

Its new report found that in 2013 alone, a total of 30 million new malicious strains were in circulation, at an average of 82,000 per day.

Panda has also announced the launch of a World Cup giveaway, which will run from March 14th to June 11th. Users who want to participate need to purchase and activate a consumer product, sign up at www.pandaworldcup.com and choose one of the national teams that participate in the Football World Cup during the giveaway period.

In other news, Bitdefender has warned taxpayers to be cautious after its Anti-Spam Lab discovered that a total of 10,000 tax-related spam emails were sent in a single day in the first week of March.

Bitdefender found that some of the scam e-mails were delivered with a phishing form while others came with a malicious attachment that, once opened, would steal credentials from FTP accounts (used to harbour malware), Bitcoin wallets or information on e-mail clients and browsers.

Meanwhile, Avira reminded computer users to be cautious on St Patrick’s Day after finding several scams and hacks on previous years inspired by the holiday.

In 2011, at the height of Zynga FarmVille frenzy, some players were fooled by the ‘Leprechaun’s Cottage’ scam, which appeared in their news feeds showing a golden harp and promising in-game gold. Players who clicked on the link ended up spamming all of their Facebook friends with the same scam.

Malware image via Shutterstock.com