Malware Infections Spike on Memorial Day in DC
Malware infections tend to spike at times when users are more likely to be home, such as corporate holidays. In D.C., however, those numbers skyrocket when government employees are on vacation, particularly on federal holidays.
Researchers at EnigmaSoftware.com found malware infections increased by 29.8 percent nationwide on federal holidays, while the D.C.-area saw an average increase of 51.7 percent. On Memorial Day, that average jumped to 63 percent.
“A 51 percent jump is pretty dramatic,” said Patrick Morganelli, EnigmaSoftware senior vice president of technology. “That means there are a lot more people than normal who are home on their personal computers and are engaged in activities where infections are likely to occur.”
EnigmaSoftware based their findings off of malware instances detected by their scanning systems on thousands of personal computers in the Washington area and on hundreds of thousands nationwide. (The company declined to release exact figures on the number of customers using their software.)
“We took a look at the number of infections detected by our software in Washington, D.C. on each of the major federal holidays over the last two years and compared the number on that day to the average number of daily infections for the prior month,” EnigmaSoftware spokesman Ryan Gerding explained. “What we found is that in Washington, D.C. on federal holidays, the number of infections spike 51.7 percent compared to the typical number of daily infections.”
Full article by Aaron Boyd, Federal Times
About the Author
Roger Chu is the Marketing Coordinator at GSAmart, the leading GSA sales and marketing partner for technology companies.
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