Asian Countries Found to Lead Top 10 Malware-Infected Countries in 2012

The year 2012 was undoubtedly an eventful time where we saw the emergence of new types of malware threats on a global scale. Many of the popularized malware threats during 2012 primarily originated from Asian countries according the Panda Security's Annual Security Report 2012.

In the Panda Security report, it was revealed that an astonishing 27 million new strains of malware were created during 2012 with an abundance of 74,000 samples released into the wild every day.

Anyone could have predicted the year 2012 to have millions of new malware strains created and a steady increase in the proportion of infected computers. However, you would be wrong to suspect that there were more infected computers in 2012 proportion to the number of malware strains released. In Panda Security's 2012 Annual Security Report, another stunning statistic of malware decreasing from 38.49 percent in 2011 to 31.98 percent in 2012. Usually those numbers are unheard of, but with new types of threats making their way onto systems we can expect such surprises.

Graphical analysis from Panda Security's report reveals that China leads the way for their list of top malware-infected countries in 2012 accounting for 54.89 percent of infected systems. Following China coming in at second place with 54.15 percent is South Korea and then Taiwan at 42.14 percent. Within the list of top 10 malware-infected countries, the top of the list is led by Asian countries.

Well above the global average, Thailand had a 33.37 percent of PCs infected with malware while Japan falls in line at 26 percent. Panda Security's Annual Security Report 2012 chart below reveals other countries, such as Turkey, Honduras, Bulgaria, Bolivia, Israel, Slovakia and Poland all trailing China, South Korea and Taiwan, which makes up the majority.

Panda Security's Annual Security Report 2012 - Most Malware-Infected Countries in 2012

Looking that types of malware infections that made the year 2012 an eventful time when malware infection rates declined yet creation remained on an incline, you will take notice to Trojans making up a shocking 76.56 percent of the malware pie. The chart below shows malware infections by type in 2012 where the closest type of infection trailing Trojans is Viruses at a low 8% followed by Worms at 6.44%, Adware Spyware at 5.72% and Others at 3.28%.

Panda Security's Annual Security Report 2012 - Malware Infections by type in 2012

Exclaimed as a reason for Trojans having a majority stake in malware infections of 2012, is due to new advanced exploitation kits such as the Black Hole. These kits are able to automatically exploit multiple system vulnerabilities to infect computers without any human intervention. Basically, all it takes is one exploit kit to be set off on it's journey while it takes on thousands to hundreds of thousands of systems.

In looking into our fresh start in 2013, we can look back on 2012 and learn something to take with us and apply to the way we protect computers now. Advanced Trojans are expected to become even more aggressive. Even the Flashback Trojan has caused havoc among Mac computers, upwards of 600,000 systems. In the past, it was almost unheard of a Mac system susceptible to such a malware infection. Just think what this year will bring.