Windows viruses soar by more than 400%

[Apple Hobo]

Link

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The number of new viruses and worms aimed at Microsoft Corp.'s ubiquitous Windows operating system rose 400 percent between January and June from the same year-earlier period, computer security company Symantec said Sunday.

Nearly 5,000 new Windows viruses and worms were documented in the first half of the year, up from about 1,000 a year earlier, said Symantec, the world's largest computer security company by revenue.

 

[grapes911]

That really annoys me. Not that windows has so many viruses, but that people put so much wasted time in making them.

 

[AoWolf]

Thank goodness apple has such small market share...

 

[munkle]

Thank goodness apple has such small market share...

And a superior architecture...

 

[Macmaniac]

Its not so much architecture, if someone wanted to spend time they could create a working mac virus, its just that being 5% really helps most of the time, Virus creators are doing what they do because they want to be noticed.

 

[Brettla]

I have my anti virus on my windows pc and it runs everyday, and finds something everyother day, and it's only used for AIM, Internet, and Folding, and the i usually have to remove spyware and adware everyday, i'm sure glad i have my Macs to rely, instead of that windows computer. You would think that microsoft would put something in their critical updates to help you aviod viruses, but no they just can't do that.

 

[stoid]

5,000 viruses in 6 months?!? That's nearly 28 every single day! You'd be blocking a new virus roughly every 45-50 minutes! That's overly insane. I can see where Windows anti-virus could be a huge market. However, for the Mac, see sig.

 

[zelmo]

Does anyone know what percentage of Symantec's work force is devoted to the developement of new virii?

 

[grapes911]

I have my anti virus on my windows pc and it runs everyday, and finds something everyother day, and it's only used for AIM, Internet, and Folding, and the i usually have to remove spyware and adware everyday, i'm sure glad i have my Macs to rely, instead of that windows computer. You would think that microsoft would put something in their critical updates to help you aviod viruses, but no they just can't do that.

If your removing something everyday (other than maybe tracking cookies) you've got a problem you should look into.

 

[Timelessblur]

well most of those new virus are not really new per say but just varation of a few of the biger one. There are a few 100 vartion of the sassier virus. several 100 versons of the blaster virus. Just windows got his by seval large virus this year so the script kiddies out there who suck at real coding take a sourse of somethign like blaster and change a few things in them but all they are all script kiddies who know nouthing about reall hacking and virus writing

 

[BornAgainMac]

5,000 viruses in 6 months?!? That's nearly 28 every single day! You'd be blocking a new virus roughly every 45-50 minutes! That's overly insane. I can see where Windows anti-virus could be a huge market. However, for the Mac, see sig.

You sound like Steve.

 

[Chappers]

I read various pages on the macobserver about market share and macosx. According to a security firm in the UK, the number of virii/attacks/hacks on a system had little to do with market share. Other operating systems with a market share much lower than the macos suffered more.
Obviously I'm not quoting but I guess if you were interested then you could check out the macobserver.

 

[JFreak]

windows virii actually affect us mac users too. those virus-infected windows boxes keep spamming us too with the stupid virus messages

 

[Savage Henry]

windows virii actually affect us mac users too. those virus-infected windows boxes keep spamming us too with the stupid virus messages

Yeah, that's what really jerks my chicken about Windows virus ... stoopid viral e-mails from windows peecees

My ISP has been hit 3 times from the overloading caused, and a figure like 400% doesn't lift my spirits much for the future.

 

[srobert]

When you look at how much spam and virii there were 5 years ago, how much there is now... it's scary to think of what's it gonna be in five years from now. What's worse, looks like it's exponential and not linear.

 

[javabear90]

windows virii actually affect us mac users too. those virus-infected windows boxes keep spamming us too with the stupid virus messages

That's what the junk feature on Mail.app is

 

[Timelessblur]

windows virii actually affect us mac users too. those virus-infected windows boxes keep spamming us too with the stupid virus messages

also effects you in another way to. Everyone feels it when the internet slows to the crawl

 

[jhu]

one big way to decrease viral infestation is to not use internet explorer! unfortunately, not enough people know that alternatives are available.