According to the latest report, more than 34 million new malware samples have been discovered so far in 2022. Compared with Apple systems such as Mac, Microsoft Windows and Android are still the riskiest platforms.
According to Atlas data, by 2022, malware authors will create more than 316,000 new malware threats every day. The team’s information is based on data analysis of independent antivirus and security vendor AV-Test GmbH.
January saw the largest increase in new malware development, with 11.41 million new malware samples registered in the first month of 2022. There were 8.93 million malware samples in February compared to 8.77 million in March.
By the end of the first quarter of 2022, there were 29.11 million newly discovered malware threats. By this count, at least 5.65 million new malware samples were discovered in April. As for the breakdown between platforms, Microsoft Windows found 25.48 million new malware samples in 2022. At least 536,000 unprecedented Android malware samples were also found.
Apple platforms appear to be less affected, with 2,000 new malware samples discovered in 2022 for macOS. Despite the relative rarity of macOS malware, Apple still found the number of threats on the platform to be “unacceptable” compared to iOS. Vulnerabilities and exploits are not unheard of on iOS, but they are rarer than on macOS.
The prevalence of malware on competing platforms such as Android and Windows has been at the heart of Apple’s arguments against opening up its platforms. Apple has repeatedly argued that U.S. and European Union antitrust legislation could cause real harm to user privacy and security.