Malware infections and spam fall off in February

February saw a fall in malware infections and spam, but security experts have warned that this is not necessarily indicative of better security practice.

Figures released by Panda Security show that malware infections among its network of users fell from 50 per cent to 39 per cent last month.

Over 60 per cent of these infections came from Trojans, followed by viruses at 11 per cent and worms less than one per cent.

"China, Ukraine, Thailand and Taiwan held the top four highest rates of infection at over 50 per cent of cases," said Panda Security in its monthly report.

"Other countries such as Italy, the US and France recorded rates below 40 per cent, but ranked higher than last month."

Symantec also reported that spam rates fell in February, and are well down on this time last year. The percentage of email traffic made up of spam had fallen to less than 80 per cent by the end of the month.

However, these figures are not necessarily a sign that security software is becoming more effective, but rather that online criminals are shifting tactics.

Several speakers at this year's RSA Conference noted that spam levels will continue to fall as spammers shift to more targeted attacks using social networking methods.

Similarly, a drop in traditional malware infections may also mask a change in tactics by criminals into forms of software that escape notice, according to Noa Bar Yosef, senior security strategist at Imperva.

"Hackers are releasing new variants of client-side threats at such a rapid rate that anti-malware detection tools are faced with the nearly impossible task of keeping up with all new and old variants," she told V3.co.uk.

"I believe that, although these results show a drop in malware, client-side malware will continue to increase, making the task of ensuring security on the client's machine all the more implausible."