During the last year, security experts from Webroot have scanned over 27 billion URLs, 600 million domains, 4 billion IP addresses, 20 million mobile apps, 10 million connected sensors, and took a look over 9 billion file behavior records.
What they've found is that in 97% of all detections, malware is unique to the system it infects, even if, at its core, in many infections, it's the same malware variant.
Webroot security researchers are saying that malware operators are intentionally using a technique called polymorphism that alters the malware's binaries in a way to generate unique executables.
The technique is old, and can be applied on the server, from where the malware is distributed, before packaging it for each victim, or on the client's side, where the malware changes itself with each new infected victim.
This so-called polymorphism technique produces new signatures for each new malware infection, and it may be the reason why other cyber-security companies like
Dell or
Panda Security are reporting seeing new malware numbers in the range of billions per year and millions per month.
