According to Akami's latest state of the Internet report, Russia and Brazil have unseated the US and China as the leading sources of Internet attacks and between them now account for 22 percent of the total.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called on China to investigate the recent cyberattacks on Google and other companies, which have been traced to China. In response, China has charged the U.S. with "information imperialism," while President Obama has said he still wants answers.

While some European governments are recommending users abandon Internet Explorer in the light of the current security scare, Microsoft and some security vendors question the value of such a move.

New and emerging cyber threats will be used by cybercriminals to target and attack social network sites this year, with McAfee predicting sites like Twitter and Facebook will be the ‘platforms of choice’ for these attacks.

It seems there was more to the China-based attack on Google and other US companies than the search giant originally revealed. Source code may have been the real target.

Following "a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China", Google has said it is no longer prepared to censor search results on Google.cn and is prepared to pull out of China if necessary.

Australia continues to rank as one of the top ten countries worldwide to suffer online brand attacks, and while Colombia and France have dropped off the chart completely, New Zealand and Brazil have entered the list for the first time, according to a new report on worldwide fraud released today.

Cybercriminals are employing increasingly persuasive online scare tactics to convince users to purchase rogue security software, or “scareware” software that pretends to be legitimate security software. 

America takes national security very seriously and that applies, too, to Internet security, with no-less than President Obama going online with a video address calling on all Americans to heed a cybersecurity call-to-action and for government, the private sector and everyday citizens to focus on their own responsibilities for security on the net.

New botnets are reportedly causing more havoc on the Internet, with botnets now responsible for sending 87.9 percent of all spam, including one of the oldest and largest botnets which has doubled in size in just four months.