2016 malware levels nearly four times 2015 totals, cybersecurity company finds

A security analyst team at AppRiver, a cloud-based cyber security company based in Gulf Breeze, Fl., has quarantined 4.2 billion emails containing malware in the second quarter of 2016, “pointing to a continued increase in malware traffic this year.”

The emails containing malware have resulted in a total of 6.6 billion emails quarantined during the first half of 2016. For comparison, analysts observed 1.7 billion emails containing malware during all of 2015, AppRiver said in a press release earlier this week.

According to AppRiver’s Q2 Global Security Report, 57% of spam and malware traffic originated in North America, with Europe coming in second place at 20.9%.