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(December 6 1864, William Surrey Hart, American silent film actor, was born)

Virus creator tools, one of the main causes for the increase in malware

PandaLabs, Panda Security's malware analysis and detection laboratory, has detected a new tool (image here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/panda_security/3077399954/ ), BitTera.C, which allows cyber-crooks to create malware very easily.

The capacity of these tools to rapidly create hundreds of malicious codes, and the fact that they do not require programming knowledge, have made them a major contributor to the increase in malware

"Tools like these keep the amount of malware in circulation at record levels: by the end of August our laboratory had already detected as much malware as during the whole of 2007. On average, we receive 22,000 new malware samples a day", says Luis Corrons, Technical Director of PandaLabs

BitTera.C allows malware creators to customize features: type, effects, encryption, polymorphism, etc. Among other malicious actions, it allows cyber-crooks to:

All these actions are available from a console by simply selecting the corresponding checkbox

These tools are becoming increasingly popular and are sold cheaply on online forums. PandaLabs has even detected a program designed to create spoof YouTube pages

Due to the large amounts of malware in circulation, PandaLabs recommends users to be extremely careful, be aware of Internet risks and have an up-to-date, latest generation antivirus installed.

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