Not really a first.... 

By Matthew Anderson Posted Thursday 26th April 2007 12:27 GMT

To Quote "Hackers have combined spam and malware together in a single email threat."

Come now, spam emails containing links to either executables or sites hosting malware have been around for quite some time now. It may be a first in pump and dump spam but it's hardly new now is it?? If you were to do an article on every single variation on each and every spam message/tactic then you would need an entire new site to report it on so why single this minor variation out??? Not newsworthy!

Also...

To Quote "Large scale virus outbreaks have almost become a thing of the past"

Not for lack of trying! Blaster fairly rocked the planet when it came out, I remember seeing people dropping like flys within 30 minutes of the virus being released, believe me because I know who released it, the million dollar question ey, and not that fat chubby boy in the States... However, other than a few other big scale threats shortly after, there simply has not been an exploit which could cause such wide spread infection - each and every new exploit published has been used to a modicum of success but none have caused large scale outbreaks./infection . We know this because it has not happened, yes there have been plenty of warnings but did they come to much? No.. So what people are doing now is adapting to the fact, they are doing smaller targeted spam runs of viruses where they get a higher rate of infection than large scale spams which need more resources for a lower infection percentage.

It's a waiting game - as soon as a decent exploit is published it will be used and we shall have tens of thousands of new 16 year old bot herders ddosing every website they can yet again..