Viruses hit 1 million mark

It was bound to happen sooner or later: According to security vendor Sophos, there will be 1 million distinct computer viruses and malware apps by the end of 2008. Now, you might be quick to dismiss that number as nothing more than fodder for alarmist headlines--and rightfully so--but there's a little more to the story than that. It seems that a whopping 25 percent of that malware was produced just in the last six months, which points to a rapid acceleration in malware on the web. Still, it's not all bad news. For example, one in 1000 emails currently contains a piece of malware; a major improvement on the one in 40 ratio that existed in 1995. And despite the growth of malware, security companies are logging upwards of 25,000 samples a day. "About 85 to 90 percent of malware families have a fix created for them almost immediately," Sophos chief technology officer Paul Ducklin said.

For more on current malware and virus trends:
- see this PC World article