One hundred percent growth in malware in Romania, as shown by BitDefender

Newsroom 10/08/2010 | 07:30

Romania has registered a 100 percent malware growth within the first six months of 2010, compared to the same period in 2009, announces Romanian-based anitivirus company BitDefender.

Most of the informatics threats affecting Romanian in the first semester of 2010 are international malware applications. An average of 9,000 new threats or mutations took place daily, totalizing over 1,600,000 threats for the first six months of this year.

The most important local malware threat is represented by Win32.Worm.IM.J, discovered in 2004, which, in order to spread, sends messages with links to its copies via instant messaging service suppliers such as Yahoo Messenger.

Regarding spamming and phishimg, Romania has ranked ninth in sending unsolicited mail. The spam sent in Romania is mostly the result of infections with various bots used internationally and local spam campaigns are quite rare, mostly promoting illegal activities, continues the report. What’s more, spam campaigns are also a consequence to the economic crisis, as some companies choose this means of promotion due to the minimum costs it assumes and the numerous recipients it allegedly reaches.

Between January and June 2010, numerous phishing campaigns occurred in Romania, especially in the banking sector. Messages promising rewards for completing various forms featuring personal data flooded the recipients’ mail inboxes. Most phishers took advantage of the 656 / 2002 Romanian law and the Romanian National Bank’s Law no. 9/20008 regarding knowing the clientele’s identity in order to prevent money laundering and terrorism financing, shows the BitDefender press release.