Russia supersedes China as largest malware producer

Analysts at security vendor PC Tools have revealed that Russia has
superseded China as the world's highest producer of spyware and viruses,
with Russia now accounting for 27.89% of malware while China accounts for
26.52%.

The UK is up to six in the chart, overtaking France.

Statistics generated using Threat Expert's automated threat analysis system,
suggest that the death of the notorious malware distributor the Russian
Business Network (RBN) has done little to curb malware production in the
country. Threat Expert has identified a substantial rise in malware
originating from Russia, overtaking China for the first time in over a year.

"The vacuum left by the RBN has been filled by other malware distributors,"
said Sergei Shevchenko, Malware Research Analyst for PC Tools, who likens
Russian malware distributors' support of cyber-crime to Russian mythology.
"Russian mythology refers to a dragon-like creature with three heads, called
Zmey Gorynych that requires all three heads to be severed to ensure its
death" said Shevchenko

"The bottom line is that there are more viruses and spyware coming out of
Russia now than ever before and the complexity of this malware is also
increasing" said Shevchenko. "The trend is to produce many variants and
flood networks as quickly as possible. The perpetrators can then sit back
and see what has landed and which machines will be compromised"

Shevchenko said it is getting more difficult for security analysts to track
malware and the demise of RBN was not necessarily a good thing.

"Like many malware researchers we bemoaned the demise of RBN because at
least when in existence we could monitor their activity. Now we are seeing
Russian malware hosting services being advertised for servers in Malaysia,
China, Panama, Singapore, Thailand, Turkey and India with 'shadow' providers
in the US making cyber-crime more complicated to track."

The World Threat Chart

1. Russia - 27.89%
2. China - 26.52%
3. United States - 9.98%
4. Brazil - 6.77%
5. Ukraine - 5.45%
6. United Kingdom - 5.34%
7. France - 3.81%
8. Germany - 2.14%
9. Sweden - 1.6%
10. Spain - 1.37%

See the Threat Expert world atlas here - http://www.threatexpert.com/map.aspx

The Russian Business Network was shut down in November last year. It had a
history of enabling cybercrime and was purported to also host phishing sites
and child pornography.

ABOUT THREAT EXPERT

Threat Expert was developed by the same team of professionals who created PC
Tools' flagship products, such as PC Tools Spyware Doctor, PC Tools
AntiVirus, Registry Mechanic, and many others.

ABOUT PC TOOLS

PC Tools is a global software leader with a cache of security and utility
products, including the multi award-winning Spyware Doctor. PC Tools is an
industry leader in real-time anti-spyware and has a number of key patents
pending.

The PC Tools Malware Research Centre monitors trends and emerging spyware
issues and provides security solutions for the consumer and enterprise
marketplace. The company is headquartered in Sydney, with offices in San
Francisco, London, Shannon (Ireland), Melbourne, Kiev, and Boulder. PC Tools
has a global network of distributors, resellers, and retailers.