Analysts at security vendor PC Tools today revealed that Russia has superseded the US and China as the world's highest producer of spyware and viruses, with Russia now accounting for 27.89% of malware while China accounts for 26.52% and the US 9.98%.

The US has shifted down from second place to third, after Russia and China in the malware chart.

Statistics generated using Threat Expert's automated threat analysis system, Threat Expert (www.threatexpert.com) suggest that the death of the notorious malware distributor the Russian Business Network (RBN) has done little to curb malware production in the country. Threat Expert has identified a substantial rise in malware originating from Russia, overtaking the US and China for the first time in over a year.

"The vacuum left by the RBN has been filled by other malware distributors," said Sergei Shevchenko, Malware Research Analyst for PC Tools, who likens Russian malware distributors' support of cyber-crime to Russian mythology. "Russian mythology refers to a dragon-like creature with three heads, called Zmey Gorynych that requires all three heads to be severed to ensure its death" said Shevencko.

"The bottom line is that there are more viruses and spyware coming out of Russia now than ever before and the complexity of this malware is also increasing" said Shevencko. "The trend is to produce many variants and flood networks as quickly as possible. The perpetrators can then sit back and see what has landed and which machines will be compromised."

Shevchenko said it is getting more difficult for security analysts to track malware and the demise of RBN was not necessarily a good thing.

"Like many malware researchers we bemoaned the demise of RBN because at least when in existence we could monitor their activity. Now we are seeing Russian malware hosting services being advertised for servers in Malaysia, China, Panama, Singapore, Thailand, Turkey and India with 'shadow' providers in the US making cyber-crime more complicated to track."

Kavkaz Center