Malware levels starting to show signs of slowing

The growth in new malware began to slow over the final three months of last year, according to data from McAfee.

The security firm said that it detected 75 million pieces of malware over the fourth quarter of 2011, the growth rate had slowed since 2010.

Additionally, the company noted that spam levels continued to drop over the fourth quarter as security efforts, such as botnet takedowns, helped bring levels to the lowest McAfee has recorded in years.

The good news, however was tempered with a number of disturbing trends, including the continued growth in mobile attacks.

"Although the release of new malware slowed a bit in Q4, mobile malware continued to increase and recorded its busiest year to date," McAfee Labs head of research and communications Dave Marcus said in a blog post.

"In total, both 2011 and the fourth quarter were by far the busiest periods for mobile malware that McAfee has seen yet, with Android firmly fixed as the largest target for writers of mobile malware."

Targeted attacks and advanced persistent threats (APTs) also continued to menace firms in the fourth quarter. McAfee noted that both SQL injection and cross-site scripting attacks were increasingly observed over the quarter, while corporate espionage and hacktivist attacks also look set to climb in 2012.

"We saw some advances in cybercrime toolkits, as well as events that may have involved national governments," the company said in its report.

"One bright spot in the threats landscape, however, was the number of successful arrests and prosecutions of cybercriminals."