Internet security firm F-Secure, during the third week of December 2009, released a list of probable e-threats for 2010.



The list reveals that the market share of Windows 7 will increase in 2010. Conversely, the overall market share of Windows XP will fall below 50%. Consequently, security will be enhanced and easy assaults in wealthy nations will get reduced. However, malicious assaults will shift to countries still using XP, especially developing countries.



Mikko Hypponen, Chief Research Officer at F-Secure, anticipated that cybercriminals will try to find easy targets, reported Forbes.com on December 15, 2009.z

Meanwhile, certain clues prove that there may be less security flaws in the codes of Windows 7 as compared to Windows XP. While the code-base for Windows 7 was available to security researchers and hackers during 2008, merely 9 flaws were discovered in Windows 7 during 2009 as compared to the 137 flaws found in Windows XP. However, that number is likely to change with Windows 7 being increasingly adopted.



Furthermore, F-Secure predicts that with more searches via Bing and Google there'll be changes in Search Engine Optimization attacks that will now occur more frequently. Consequently, people will be increasingly forwarded to fake Internet sites or sites with malware.