An infections graph released by the Trend Micro Threat Analytics shows that the growth in severe malware infections grew 200% throughout 2007. See below.

Severe malware place user data and credibility at risk by damaging possibly critical user and system data (which may render the system unusable or lead to irreparable data loss), compromising user systems, or using complex rootkit techniques allowing the malware to become virtually untraceable. This trend also shows us the increasing importance of keeping anti-malware scan engines as up-to-date as possible.

Thanks to Anthony Arrott and Paul Ferguson for the analysis and preparation of this material.