Panda Security Research

We have conducted a research project with the objective of uncovering the real malware situation at real computers with updated protection installed.

The study gathered information from 1.48 million users in more than 80 countries and 1,206 companies around the world. Only networks with more than 100 PCs are included in the results.They scanned their PCs with a special scanner that detects more than 3 millions threats.

Infection Criteria

• A PC is considered infected when we find malware (trojan, adware, virus, worms, etc) actively running in memory: actually doing something to the PC.
• A PC is not considered infected if it only has latent malware (malware in email databases, saved on the hard drive or otherwise) which is not actively running: it is stored in the PC but not working at the moment.
• A PC is not considered infected if it only has tracking cookies, jokes or other non-malicious applications.

Protected System Criteria:

We consider a PC is protected if it has an anti-malware or security solution installed and updated with the latest available virus signature database.

Infection rates in Protected Systems

If we consider both protected and not protected PCs the numbers are much bigger.

Workstations by State of Anti-Malware Protection

Infected Networks with Active Malware

You can download the full research here for free.