Internet Threats Trend Report for the third quarter quarter of 2009 has been published by Commtouch.

Highlights of the report include

• An average of 332,000 zombies were newly activated each day for the purpose of malicious activity.
• Spam levels averaged 83% of all email traffic throughout the quarter, peaking at 97% in July and bottoming out at 71% in August.
• Email-borne malware that bypassed traditional anti-virus engines peaked every 11 to 13 days during the second half of the quarter, dominated by Mal-Bredo A and Mal Behav-340, of which over 10,000 distinct variants were distributed.
• Sites in the "Health & Medicine" and "Sex Education" categories topped the list of Web categories manipulated by phishing schemes.
• "Business" continued to be the Web site category most infected with malware.
• The financial crises and the debate around health care reform in the US has shaped recent spam trends.
• Pharmacy spam returned to the top spot with 68% of all spam messages. Last quarter’s top spam subject, enhancements, fell from 46.2% to 11% of all spam messages this quarter.
• Brazil continues to produce the most zombies, responsible for 19.7% of global zombie activity.

Whole report or its parts can by published (without charge) in press and other media if source is published: www.security-increase.com