In our online lives, nothing sends a shiver quite as quickly as a bluescreen, going down via bad hard-drives, corrupt installs or withering hardware is one thing, going blue via a virus is another story entirely, data is more often than not lost forever.

Many of the most potent viruses last year were transmitted via links to corrupted sites or email attachments, often hitting as a disguised news story. From government agencies to electronics giants, hackers and attackers fought their way into personal information systems and websites, often just to show it could be done, but more often nefariously stealing valuable personal information.

In 2010 internet security evangelist Eddy Willems said “The current numbers are alarming. The malware industry has published nearly four new viruses per minute in the first half of 2010. We expect the two million barrier to be broken in the second half of the year”