Malware 'grew by 100 percent' in 2007

The amount of malware detected on the internet doubled in 2007, according to the software security company F-Secure.

New malware variants are being created by cyber criminals "in bulk", according to F-Secure, which is based in Finland. Social engineering continued to be a favored way for cyber criminals to deliver malware, often conning email recipients into opening links that lead to web site hosting the malware.

Patrik Runald, security response manager at F-Secure, said: "We've never seen as many samples arrive at our lab."We would be unable to handle such huge loads if we would not have built a high degree of automation into our malware analysis systems over the past years." Online financial transactions are a favored target of cyber criminals, F-Secure warned, with the amount of phishing sites increasing exponentially.

So-called Man in the Browser attacks, where banking Trojans are fed directly into applications are also becoming more popular. For information on other digital products and services visit Broadband National.