The recent successes of anti-virus software in keeping many computers out of harms way has ironically led to a change of tactics by many cyber criminals.

Whereas malicious software used to come out sporadically, followed by the occasional variants, it now appears that the people behind the viruses are determining to flood the ether with new copies and their variants, and updated versions of old ‘favourites.’

Mostly this is designed to give the security companies less time to analyse the virus and publish a solution.

If you look at the number of malicious programmes out and about over the years you see startling growth. Way back in 1988, there may have been around 2,000 samples of such programmes. Ten years later that had grown to just under 200,000 and a further ten years on, it had reached an incredible six million.

One security company reported recently that it had seen more malware in 2007 than in the previous 20 years. And 2008 proved even worse.

But the industry is keen to point out that these malicious programmes are not all new types. A large proportion are variants on viruses that have been around for many years, some since the start.

Nonetheless, of the 150,000 new samples of malware being introduced every day, some 30,000 are new types.

And this volume of new and variant viruses is causing a change of approach from the security companies. With fewer viruses out there, the companies used to have the time to examine the programme, create and test a solution, and then issue it to their clients. This has been the acceptable method for at least the last 20 years and it’s now set to change.

Now, speed is of the essence. What is important now is a more general approach, based on the theory that although viruses can take on many forms, from worms to trojans, the basic aim is to subvert a computer. Start from that point and there’s a set logic to what the cyber criminals are trying to achieve.

And now computer security companies are taking a new approach, which questions every file out there. In short, everything is guilty until proved innocent, at which time it can be downloaded and used by the computer.

This new approach, although not bringing tears to the eyes of cyber criminals yet, might at least slow down the relentless introduction of new malware samples.

Guest Article by Neil Camp