● Windows Trojan That Infected Over 3.6 Million PCs Evolves with Worm Behavior

One of the top families of malicious code targeting the Windows platform has evolved with the addition of worm behavior, Microsoft warns. According to data made public via the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report, the Win32/Vundo Trojan infected over 3.6 million computers in the second half of 2008, and occupies the third position in a malware ranking behind Renos and Zlob. Vundo is a family of malware with various components that are designed to serve victims 'out of context' pop-up advertisements following infection. Microsoft warns that the Vundo family of malicious software can also be used to download and execute arbitrary files.

● One bot-infected PC = 600,000 spam messages a day

TRACElabs concluded that Rustock and Xarvester, the latter perhaps linked to the down-and-out Srizbi botnet, are the most efficient spam spewers of the nine bots. Each is capable of sending up to 25,000 messages per hour, or 600,000 per day, and 4.2 million per week.

● Updated research of the largest base of real-world vulnerability data

4. Exploitation - Eighty percent of vulnerability exploits are now available within single digit days after the vulnerability’s public release. In 2008, Qualys Labs logged 56 vulnerabilities with zero-day exploits, including the RPC vulnerability that produced Conficker. In 2009, the first vulnerability released by Microsoft, MS09-001 had an exploit available within seven days. Microsoft’s April Patch Tuesday included known exploits for over 47 percent of the published vulnerabilities. This law had the most drastic change from the Laws 1.0 in 2004, which provided a comfortable 60 days as guidance.