Economy Declines: Zombies Multiply And Spam Soars!

Even as the economy plummets and economic projections tumble, quarterly threat reports show rapidly rising threats and another outright explosion in spam, according to Secure Computing's quarterly Internet threat report.The Secure Computing Q3 Internet Threat Report showed a sharp increase in spam over the course of the summer. The U.S. is the world's top spam source, responsible for nearly a third of the junk, more than double its percentage share from a year ago.

The U.S. and China are the world's top malware hosts: 60 percent of malware is resident on servers either here or in China.

That malware is spawning a rapid rise in hijacked computers: according to Secure, more than 5,000 zombie computers are created every hour!

Goes nearly without saying that finance-related spam is growing at about the same rate the world's economy shrinks.

Next year's woes, according to prognosticators at Secure will include:

Increased financial phishing scams

Blended threats that use coupons and other tight-times appeals as come-ons

Politically motivated attacks against networks

New threats mounted against new platforms including social networks and Web 2.0 capable phones and other devices.

Widespread malware compromises of legit Web sites; as much as half of malware my be resident on legitimate sites in 20089, the report says.

No good news here -- but plenty of reminders to tighten and tighten again your defenses and, equally and maybe more important, your employees' (and families') awareness of just how threatening the threat environment is becoming.