20% of all malware ever created appeared in 2013

In 2013 alone, cyber-criminals created and distributed 20 percent of all malware that has
ever existed, with a total of 30 million new malicious strains in circulation, at an
average of 82,000 per day.


http://press.pandasecurity.com/news/20-of-all-malware-ever-created-appeared-in-2013/

 

Not surprising but i bet most of then are variations of another malware and so on.

 

So... what happened in 2013?

My future prediction is ransomware is going to be very popular since it has proven to be very successful and more effective. Only thing is it'd be also easier to identify the suspects. Adware would also be great, more than today's rate since it still sits on the grey area and people seem to see them as forgiveable.

 

The 2013 FireEye Advanced Threat Report! (February 27, 2014)

Based on our data, the U.S., South Korea, and Canada were the top APT targets in 2013; the
U.S., Canada, and Germany were victimized by the highest number of unique malware families.


In sum, the 2013 ATR offers strong evidence that malware infections occur within enterprises
at an alarming rate, that attacker infrastructure is global in scope, and that advanced
attackers continue to penetrate legacy defenses, such as FIREWALLS and
ANTI-VIRUS (AV), with ease.

http://www.fireeye.com/blog/uncategorized/2014/02/the-2013-fireeye-advanced-threat-report.html

 

With over 80,000 new strains in circulation on any given day, does anyone really believe that AVs can identify half of these before they infect users, or that their existence is discovered within a day or 2 after their release?

 

Then we also have all the variants that is released each day too.

 

Since what year did malware first start to appear?

 

Are they counting each re-encryption as a new "strain"?

 

1986:

http://campaigns.f-secure.com/brain/

(Maybe not malware, more a PUP)

 

Good info to know but I am less interested in the "quantity" as compared to the "quality" of malware. Malware these days are more sophisticated and they do not show their presence as much compared to the older days. They also do not necessarily require persistence to do damage; it's more reliable but a short timeframe might still serve enough opportunity to steal data.