These were the top 'threat' trends in 2006:

Spam
The average spam rate was 86.2 percent; botnets accounted for 80 percent of all spam; 63.4 percent of spam came from unknown sources; geel spam emerged as a means to attract more sophisticated recipients with the use of technology-savvy buzzwords.

Viruses
The Nyxem.E virus, also known as MyWife.D, Blackworm or Kama Sutra, was the standout virus in a year of few major outbreaks. The average annual virus rate was one in 67.9, down from one in 36.2 messages in 2005.

Phishing
Phishing attacks peaked at one in every 274.2 e-mails, or 24.8 percent of all malicious e-mail intercepted by MessageLabs. The occurance of phishing e-mails is up from 10.6 percent in January to 68.6 percent by the close of 2006.

Geographic Trends
Israel had the highest average spam rate with 73.2 percent. Last year, the U.S. and Canada were responsible for the greatest amount of spam. Australia (48.1 percent); Hong Kong (71.7 percent); and Singapore (50.7 percent) together experienced the greatest increases in year-over-year spam rates.

Vertical/Industry Trends
Business support services were under constant fire of virus and spam attacks this year. The annual virus rate in the sector reached 9.26 percent, and average spam rate was 60.9 percent.

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