McAfee Sees 400,000 Virus Definitions by 2008
The number of malicious software being written is increasing, says McAfee's Avert Labs, which expects the number of identified threats to double in the next two years. The number of different worms and viruses reported during 1999 and 2002 was about 50,000, but now that number is on the rise, according to McAfee. The company now has about 200,000 definitions in its database of threats. McAfee uses the definitions to determine which software should be able to run on a user's PC. The increase in definitions can be attributed to the growing professionalism of hackers who are now seeking money rather than fame, says Jimmy Kuo at McAfee. "There are now hackers for hire in spamming and phishing campaigns, and they're in it to work," Kuo says. "When you create a big incident the police react and they go searching for you. So the bad guys don't create these incidents anymore." Despite the increase in malicious software, the number of serious virus outbreaks has decreased significantly from 48 in 2004 to 12 in 2005, and none this year.
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