Nearly 200,000 new malware samples appear daily

Most companies greatly underestimate the number of new malicious programs appearing daily, and only six per cent recognize the true scale of the threat, according to B2B International and Kaspersky Lab.

According to Kaspersky Lab, nearly 200,000 new malware samples appear around the world each day. Asked to estimate this figure, 90 per cent of global participants in the survey named a lower figure; four per cent guessed too high and only six per cent gave an accurate estimate.

The highest levels of malware awareness were found among respondents in the Middle East, where 24 per cent of companies gave accurate estimates. At 4 per cent, the lowest levels of malware knowledge were found in Russia.

In other regions, including North and South America, Western Europe and Asia-Pacific, the percentage of companies with accurate estimates ranged from five per cent to seven per cent.

Remarkably, the results of the same survey revealed that an average 66 per cent of companies had experienced at least one attack involving malware in the previous 12 months.

The companies most frequently targeted in those attacks were located in South America (72 per cent), Russia (71 per cent), North America (70 per cent), Asia-Pacific (68 per cent) and Western Europe (63 per cent). Not surprisingly, these are the regions which demonstrated relatively low levels of education about the number of new malware threats.

While a company’s ability to accurately assess daily malware volumes is not necessarily an indicator of preparedness to counter cyber-attacks, it is reasonable to suggest that better informed organizations are more capable of assessing risk and making the most suitable choices when it comes to protecting IT infrastructure.