More Consumers' PCs Infected With Spyware

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August 15, 2006 (1:19 PM EDT)

By Gregg Keizer , TechWeb Technology News

The percentage of consumers' computers carrying some sort of spyware or adware jumped slightly in the second quarter, anti-spyware tools vendor Webroot Software reported Tuesday, and sent the overall infection rate to levels not seen since 2004.

In the second quarter of 2006, 89 percent of consumer PCs were infected with an average of 30 pieces of spyware/adware, a small jump over Q1 and the highest mark since the final three months of 2004, Webroot spelled out in its quarterly "State of Spyware" report.

"Less than a year ago, many security experts began claiming that spyware was on the decline and that infection rates would soon drop to the point of extinction," said David Moll, the chief executive of Webroot, in a statement. "While the infection rates at that time seemingly supported this theory, the data we have culled during the past six months unequivocally show that spyware is anything but extinct."

Webroot, which used the report to stake out its position that users need more sophisticated anti-spyware technology than for-free solutions provide, noted that consumers' PCs were increasingly infected with dangerous Trojan horses. Thirty-one percent of the machines surveyed in the second quarter contained such malicious code; that was 2 percent higher than the previous quarter and 12 percent more than the same quarter in 2005.

Enterprise PCs were less likely to sport spyware, and of machines infected, corporate computers carried fewer instances of unwanted code. Unlike on the consumer side, business spyware numbers were down or flat across the board. According to Webroot, approximately 70 percent of businesses have some sort of anti-spyware protection in place.

But even companies with defenses up shouldn't rest, Moll said. "Spyware is a financially motivated threat and as long as there is a dollar to be had, cyber criminals will do everything possible to steal it."

The report can be downloaded from the Webroot site in PDF format.