The number of malware threats doubled in Romania in the first half of the year compared to the same period of last year, according to BitDefender, the Romanian security solution producer. “The majority of the informatic threats which affected Romanian users in the first half of the year were malware applications which run internationally,” the company has said.

The most important threat in Romania is a worm which sends messages with links through Yahoo Messenger. If clicked, the link leads to a download which installs the worm on the computer and runs malicious software.

Romania also ranked 9th among the top ten most active countries in terms of spam. “Although extremely visible as number of messages, the spam sent from Romania is mostly the result of infections with various bots. The spam campaigns made in Romania are relatively few and promote illegally produced products and services, according to BitDefender.

The most frequent spam messages sent from Romania promote trainings, certifications, CDs and DVDs with pirated multimedia products.