According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) a Danish security company that lately published a study, 3rd-party software that are left un-patched is the chief cause of malware infections for Windows computers. Theregister.co.uk published this on September 28, 2011.
Reportedly, some 3-5 years back, the chief technique of spreading malware was via replacing malware laced file attachments within e-mails with drive-by download assaults that hackers launched from exploit-loaded websites under their control. During that time browser exploits constituted VXers' key stock-in-trade, however, a change has taken place since then, CSIS outlines.
The drive-by download assaults are responsible for a maximum of 85% of the total malware contaminations, with commercial exploit toolkits creating the assaults, states CSIS. The company, a specialist in electronic crime research, tracked 50 individual exploit toolkits, recorded their activities during a 3-month time-span, and examined the reasons that were behind both consumer and business computers' infections.
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