Microsoft Studies 10 Years Of Malware And Threats

[sathish.k]

A lot can happen in 10 years, and that's an understatement when it comes to malware: According to new data released by Microsoft this week, the number of malware variants went from 1,000 in 1991 to millions in 2011.

In celebration of the 10-year anniversary of the launch of its Trustworthy Computing initiative, Microsoft published a special edition of its Security Intelligence Report (SIR). "What we wanted to do from the Security Intelligence Report was look at the past 10 years and how the threat landscape" has evolved, says Tim Rains, director of Microsoft's TwC. "A lot of these samples were new variants of a same family."