According to the McAfee Threats Report: Fourth Quarter 2010, new mobile malware increased 46 percent in 2010 versus the year before. The company also found 20 million new pieces of malware in 2010, equating to nearly 55,000 a day.
"Our Q4 Threats Report shows that cybercriminals are keeping tabs on what's popular, and what will have the biggest impact from the smallest effort," said Vincent Weafer, senior vice president of McAfee Labs, in a press release. "McAfee Labs also sees the direct correlation between device popularity and cybercriminal activity, a trend we expect to surge in 2011."
McAfee Labs is looking for an increase in attacks on new mobile platforms seen as easy pickings by cyber-criminals because of a "lack of security awareness and mobile safeguards."
On the upside (sort of), spam accounted for 80 percent of total emails in the fourth quarter of 2010, the lowest level since the first quarter of 2007.