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There were 376,639 new malware samples a day last year – and nine more facts from this year’s AV-Test cybersecurity report

The AV-TEST Institute has just published its annual Security Report with data on the world of cybersecurity. Here are 10 of the best facts from the new report:

* In 2018 cybersecurity programs had to fend off an average of 4.4 malware programs per second, or 376,639 new malware samples a day.

* Where does spam come from? Brazil accounted for over 14% of the world‘s total volume of spam e-mails, followed closely by the Russian Federation, where 13% of spam originates.

* Most contaminated e-mails arrive on Sundays in the morning and midday.

* With over half of all global infected websites (59%), the Russian search engine Yandex proved to be the most vulnerable to the spread of links to malware-infected websites.

* With 29%, the US microblogging service Twitter followed. Criminals used the platform to jump on trendy topics.

* Because of tight security, Google plays no role in malvertising, where criminals rent trending domains on search engines with extremely similar-sounding terms in the URL and advertise the infected websites via search engines.

* More than half (51%) of all newly developed malware programs in 2018 targeted the Windows operating system.

* In 2018, Trojans comprised nearly two-thirds of all malware programs developed for Windows (62.5%). They are followed by classic computer viruses (21%).

* The well-known parasite Mirai made 42% of all malicious code for IoT devices in 2018.

* In the first quarter of 2019 alone, there were a total of 3.2 million attacks on the open IoT devices on the Web.

AV-TEST is an independent provider of services in the field of IT security and anti-virus research. The company was founded in 2004, and is based in Magdeburg, Germany.