Web viruses decreased 47 per cent in September despite recent high-profile Microsoft vulnerabilities, according to the ScanSafe Global Threat Report.

The report is based on analysis of more than five billion Web requests and more than 10 million internet threats processed by the company in September.

Eldar Tuvey, chief executive of ScanSafe said: 'We were surprised to see such a drop-off in web viruses during September. All the recent attention on Microsoft vulnerabilities and zero-day exploits, we thought we’d see an increase. Despite the hype, a mass outbreak did not occur in September.'

'In fact, none of the top 10 web viruses blocked by ScanSafe during the month were exploits of Microsoft vulnerabilities uncovered in September, including the much publicized Vector Markup Language vulnerability. These vulnerabilities were exploited, but the exploits did not occur in high volume,' said Tuvey.

In addition to its data on Web viruses ScanSafe reported that spyware and adware increased 21 per cent in September and that eight per cent of the spyware blocks were to prevent already infected PCs from 'calling home' or transmitting outbound to a spyware domain.

In August, web viruses rose 23 per cent while spyware decreased 12 per cent.

'There is seasonality to Web viruses and spyware,' Tuvey said. 'We fully anticipate a jump in malware as consumers go online to start their holiday shopping.'

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Further Reading:

Threat report warns of spam attacks

Viral email traffic falls but threat remains

Sharp rise in phishing emails