New malware scanner finds 5% of Windows PCs infected

Java exploits remain biggest threat to PCs, says Microsoft

Computerworld - One in every 20 Windows PCs whose users turned to Microsoft for cleanup help were infected with malware, Microsoft said this week.

Microsoft cited that statistic and others from data generated by its new Safety Scanner, a free malware scanning and scrubbing tool that re-launched May 12.

The 420,000 copies of the tool that were downloaded in the first week of its availability cleaned malware or signs of exploitation from more than 20,000 Windows PCs, Microsoft's Malware Protection Center (MMPC) reported Wednesday. That represented an infection rate of 4.8%.

On average, each of the infected PCs hosted 3.5 threats, which Microsoft defined as either actual malware or clues that a successful attack had been launched against the machine.

Of the top 10 threats found by Safety Scanner, seven were Java exploits, said Scott Wu and Joe Faulhaber of the MMPC, in a blog post. Wu is a program manager with the MMPC, while Faulhaber is a software engineer.     Read More