McAfee this week reached a milestone when it added the 200,000th virus definition to its database, noting that the number will likely double by 2008. Research fellow Jimmy Kuo, of McAfeeis Avert Labs, told Macworld UK that there was a malware lull between 1999 and 2002, but the threat has been on a steady rise since then, although the number of serious outbreaks has dropped, with none recorded so far in 2006.
"There are now hackers for hire in spamming and phishing campaigns and theyire in it to work," Mr. Kuo explained. "When you create a big incident... the police react and they go searching for you. So the bad guys donit create these incidents anymore."
A blog post by Mr. Kuo has more details.