In 2009 cyber crime grew larger than the illegal drug trade, the spread of malware continued unabated and the first proof-of-concept iPhone and Mac viruses proved that no platform is immune once it is large enough to catch the eye of cyber criminals.



David Freer, Symantec Vice-President, Consumer Business, Asia-Pacific and Japan, said that while 2009 saw the first iPhone virus, it was not an attempt by an antagonized cyber-criminal, rather it was by a spotty-faced kid who did it for the fame. Even today, there is still not enough of a mass market for smart phones and it is still not worth the criminals' time - better to target the PC and the Mac. Besides, people do not usually have their personal and banking information on their phones... yet.



The image of the Mac as not needing anti-virus crumbled in 2009. Today it does not matter if you are using a Mac or a PC; if you are using a common browser or plug-in you run the risk of infection. The only reason PCs have been targeted in the past is that if the PC had a 95 percent of the market. The commercial success of the Mac changed that.



Freer said that the low point of 2009 was when the amount of money involved in cybercrime exceed the illegal drugs trade in the United States.



A close second is the sheer amount of of malware. In 2008, Symantec identified more viruses than in the past 19 years put together. In 2009 that figure was topped in just one quarter. Over 90 percent of all email is spam. The size of the Internet means that if a criminal can hook one in 10 million recipients, that number suddenly makes a lot of criminal-commercial sense.



Today malware is a hidden world, the iPhone virus aside, with people aiming for big money and hiding in the shadows. Banks are not eager to push the message of being attacked to the media so it falls on industry bodies and law enforcement to see that cyber-criminals are brought to justice.