Cybercriminals are releasing hundreds of thousands of new malware variants every day, a large percentage of which target Windows users specifically, a new report says.
Using statistics published by AV-TEST GmbH, researchers at Atlas VPN concluded that in the first three quarters of 2022, a total of 62.29 million new malware samples were detected, or approximately 228,164 new variants per day.
Among them, 59.58 million new malware samples were designed for the Windows operating system, accounting for 95.6%. Linux malware came in second (1.76 million samples/2.8%), while Android was in the top three.
most popular operating system
According to Atlas VPN, mobile operating systems saw 938,379 new threats between Q1 and Q2 2022, or 1.5 percent — and for macOS, researchers found 8,329 never-before-seen variants.
A key reason cybercriminals are so concerned about Windows is its popularity, the researchers claim. Microsoft’s operating system is by far the most dominant desktop product, accounting for about 30 percent of the global market. According to Statcounter’s global statistics, Android occupies 43.47% of the market share, iOS is 17.25%, and Linux is 1.08%.
Despite the dire numbers, the outlook is not as grim as it seems. The number of new malware variants has actually dropped significantly — by more than a third (34 percent) — compared to the same period last year, the researchers said.
Of all the different variants, ransomware remains the most damaging and therefore the most prevalent. Other popular variants include infostealers (capable of stealing stored passwords, credit card information, keystrokes, and screenshots), cryptocurrency miners (also known as cryptojackers), and bots (which use infected endpoints to initiate distributed denial service attack, can act as a service).
