Being the most popular operating system in the world has made Windows a popular target for malicious actors. It is currently in possession of about 30% of the overall OS market, but in spite of the fact that this is the case it is being targeted a bit more than normal in 2022. The disproportionate amount of cyber attacks targeting Windows is concerning because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up putting billions of users at risk.
With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that around 96% of all of the new malware samples that were taken in 2022 focused on the Windows operating system. That came up to a total of almost 60 million in 2022 alone, or 59.5 million to be precise.
Coming in second was Linux with a paltry 1.7 million new malware samples detected. However, Linux is also considerably less popular than Windows, so this number is still rather high with all things having been considered and taken into account. Noticeably absent from this list is Apple’s Mac OS, whose total new malware samples came up to just 8,329 which barely even registers on the scale.
All of this seems to suggest that using Mac OS can make users safer from malware than might have been the case otherwise, although it should also be mentioned that malware has generally been seeing a bit of a decline as of late. There were 41 million new malware samples that targeted Windows in the first quarter of 2021, but by the first quarter of 2022 this had almost halved to just 22.3 million.
Each subsequent quarter has seen a gradual decline, reaching a low of 18.45 million in the third quarter of 2022. This is the lowest number of new malware samples that has ever been, beating Q3 2021’s record of 20.2 million by a large margin. That might give some people hope that the curse of malware may be starting to recede, although time will tell if the progress can actually hold.
H/T: Atlas VPN
Read next: Report shows 96% of exploitable downloads can be avoided
With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that around 96% of all of the new malware samples that were taken in 2022 focused on the Windows operating system. That came up to a total of almost 60 million in 2022 alone, or 59.5 million to be precise.
Coming in second was Linux with a paltry 1.7 million new malware samples detected. However, Linux is also considerably less popular than Windows, so this number is still rather high with all things having been considered and taken into account. Noticeably absent from this list is Apple’s Mac OS, whose total new malware samples came up to just 8,329 which barely even registers on the scale.
All of this seems to suggest that using Mac OS can make users safer from malware than might have been the case otherwise, although it should also be mentioned that malware has generally been seeing a bit of a decline as of late. There were 41 million new malware samples that targeted Windows in the first quarter of 2021, but by the first quarter of 2022 this had almost halved to just 22.3 million.
Each subsequent quarter has seen a gradual decline, reaching a low of 18.45 million in the third quarter of 2022. This is the lowest number of new malware samples that has ever been, beating Q3 2021’s record of 20.2 million by a large margin. That might give some people hope that the curse of malware may be starting to recede, although time will tell if the progress can actually hold.
H/T: Atlas VPN
Read next: Report shows 96% of exploitable downloads can be avoided
