Lavasoft was at the Virus Bulletin conference again last week, this time as one of the main sponsors. The folks from GData were there with their now infamous annual foosball tournament, or table football as it's formally known - for serious players (like our Microsoft adversaries), or for fun-loving teams like the ladies of Lavasoft.

GData Foosball Tourney 2009

By now many of you have heard that Microsoft is preparing to release a free version of anti-virus sometime in the near future (they call it Morro for now), and we are always asked what we think and does it make us nervous.

There is a large group of Internet security-minded folks gathered in D.C. (USA) this week for the annual Anti-Spyware Coalition (ASC) public workshop event, including two of our own from Lavasoft. This year's workshop addresses the creation of a chain of trust online and how 'good actors' can cooperate in order to protect users.

This Saturday, March 28, is Earth Hour 2009. Everyone here at Lavasoft would like to encourage our users around the world to do your part, and vote! The idea is actually set up like a campaign. At 8.30 pm local time, wherever you live on the planet earth, you can “Vote Earth” and switch off your lights for one hour.

We've all heard that China has a bad reputation for being one of the global hotspots for malware distribution, but we should remember that the computer users there are victims as well. 

Our CEO, Jason King, is in China right now, and has some very interesting statistics coming out of the security industry there.

When compared to the rest of the world:

• 26% of virus infected PCs are located in China
• 81% of individual PC users currently have malware on their machines
• 80% of Chinese enterprises have been a victim of an external malware attack
• Surveys show rapid deterioration in the situation in China
• Over 65% of Chinese PCs users reported account theft and information hijack between 2003-2007
• There was an approximate 2100% increase in malware attacks toward servers 2003-2007

So, while there is a host of malware coming out of that market, they are certainly not immune to the effects.

Source:  www.antivirus-china.org.cn