South Korea’s PC infection rate was 57.3% for the second quarter, followed by China with 52% and Taiwan at 42%. This compares with the global average PC infection rate of 31.6%, according to PandaLabs’ quarterly security report.
The least infected country was Switzerland, with 18.4% of infected PCs, followed by Sweden with19.1% – the only nations with fewer than 20% of computers infected. Norway, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Germany, Ireland, Finland, Hungary and Holland are the other eight countries with the least malware infections.
“The list of least infected countries is dominated by some of the world’s most technologically advanced nations, with the sole exception of South Korea. Even though there may be other factors that influence these results, there seems to be a clear connection between technological development and malware infection rates”, noted Luis Corrons, technical director of PandaLabs.
Trojans continued to account for most of the new threats created this quarter (78.9%); worms took second place, comprising 10.8% of samples; followed by viruses at 7.4%. The last place was occupied by adware/spyware at 2.7%.
Viruses continued their decline, moving from second place in PandaLabs’ 2011 annual report (14.24%) to third place (7.4%) this quarter. Worms maintained their second position, rising from 9.3% to almost 11% this quarter.