Many Computer Viruses Become Inert After 24 Hours

More than half of computer viruses last a mere 24 hours.

Panda Security's malware detection laboratory, PandaLabs, has been analyzing the nearly 37,000 samples of new viruses, worms, Trojans and other security threats that it receives each day and found that 52 percent of them work for just 24 hours. "After that timeframe, they become inactive and harmless as they are replaced by other, new variants that join the list of new specimens in circulation," according to PandaLabs.

Of course, that still means that about 19,000 Internet threats each day last more than 24 hours.

PandaLabs says the reason so much of the malware becomes inert in such a short time is to increase the chance that they will go unnoticed and can be spread through other means to other victims without being identified by security programs.

In the past year, the number of security threats PandaLabs has received has increased enormously. The company had recorded 18 million malware samples in its entire 20-year history, as of last year. As of July 31, however, that number had leaped to 30 million.

"This is a never-ending race which, unfortunately, the hackers are still winning. We have to wait until we get hold of the malware they have created to be able to analyze, classify and combat it," said Luis Corrons, Technical Director of PandaLabs.