McAfee blamed the increased attacks on a proliferation of social networking sites as more users are lured into the Web 2.0 space.

Marcus Ranum, chief of security for consultancy Tenable Security said on security blog Beast or Buddha that Web 2.0 will increase security holes across the industry.

"I've never seen any sign that executive management is going to suddenly get [security right] and every sign that the problem is going to get worse," Ranum said.

"Wait for Web 2.0 to really take off, then you'll see what bad really feels like. We're going to have executives asking for these complex mashed-up Web sites that do all kinds of literally incomprehensible stuff for the users."

Spin-offs of the Storm Worm peer-to-peer botnet joined McAfee's top 10 threats for 2008. The company prophesied new malware variants with advanced code alteration techniques.

Instant messaging vulnerabilities, including flash worms, were noted on the list along with parasitic file infector viruses. The company expects a 20 percent increase in the proliferation of the parasitic viruses over 2008.

Virtual economies such as Second Life and other online gaming environments will be more frequently targeted by hackers next year, according to the report, while ad-ware will fall off due to better end-user security practices, government intervention and increased law enforcement.

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