Prevx says 1 in 6 systems are infected

A recent study by Prevx, a security vendor from the UK, has shown that 1 in every 6 PCs has at least one piece of malware or spyware infection. The malicious programs, which include keyloggers (programs that log keystrokes), fake anti-spyware and applications responsible for information theft, were present in 15.6% Of the 300,000 systems scanned.

The study has revealed a 60% higher rate of infection in systems that have no security program installed.

The company is offering a free scan, which it says is useful both in the sense that users will learn of infections and that such information would make them more cautious while net-surfing, since many of these programs make their way to PCs by background downloads on Web-sites that (for the most part) are known to be spreading malicious code.

These free scans have revealed that almost 60% of businesses have at least one infected PC in their organization.

Malware and Spyware is emerging at a rate of 5,000 to 10,000 programs a day and, according to Prevx, the major security vendors (Symantec, Microsoft, Trend Micro) aren’t exactly doing a great job at detecting them, with their effectiveness being anywhere between 10-50%.

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