AVG Research has released an interesting report on the changing malware landscape.  According to AVG, viruses now account for less than 15% of total threats, with phishing scams, backdoor worms, Trojans, keyloggers, spyware, adware and web-based exploits making up the rest.

For 2008 AVG predicts an increase in the number of web attacks on legitimate web sites, particularly social network sites, in order to use these sites for the illegal capture of user data and for the propagation of malware. Folks, over the last year I have been advising you to run your browser in a sandbox or with reduced rights. This is one of the reasons why. In the future you may not be able to assume that those "trusted" websites you visit have not been temporarily compromised.

http://www.avg.com.au/index.cfm?section=news&feature=83

- Shaun Sturby
Technical Services Manager
CudaMail