VIEW 17 Malware infection rates

17. Malware infection rates

Most cyber-attacks involve the installation of malware in the victim’s system at some stage in the process. Malware is malicious software designed to cause damage through executable code and can take the form of computer viruses, trojans, ransomware, spyware and keyloggers amongst many others. The diagram to the right shows malware infection rates in different countries around the world. The size of the circle is proportional to the number of devices in that country while the colour shows the malware infection rate. For example, countries where less than 8% of devices are infected are shown in green and those over 30% shown in purple. Basically, if it’s big and red hued, it’s bad news.

17. Malware infection rates

Mobiles outnumber PCs
The diagram has two sections, the top one shows the infection rates for PCs and the bottom one for mobile devices (but not laptops which are counted as PCs). Note that the number of PCs and mobile devices in the USA is broadly similar at around 200m units which is why the circles are the same size in both the top and bottom sections of the diagram. The same is also true for Western Europe and Japan. Now look at China, where the situation is very different. There are eight times more mobile devices in China than PCs and in India and Nigeria this ratio is even greater.

The conclusion is that while the cyber threat is normally seen as a PC based issue for developed economies in the West, in reality it is a much more serious issue for mobile devices in emerging markets. China is the manufacturing centre of the world, as India is for IT and outsourced services. There are few companies in the world that do not use goods or services that originate from one of these two countries. These high malware infection rates should be borne in mind whenever communicating or transacting online with these countries.

17. Malware infection rates

IoT on the Horizon
A further concern is the evolving Internet of Things (IoT) where internet connectivity is being added to physical devices and everyday objects to create smart homes and autonomous vehicles. In a few years’ time when this diagram is redrawn, the new IoT section will dwarf the other two in scale. Security is notoriously poor on most IoT devices.