Security software maker McAfee has said that new technology is leading to a rise in viruses. In its quarterly report, McAfee said that it was recording around 55,000 new threats on a daily basis during the first six months of 2010.

McAfee director of security Greg Day said that the rise in the amount of malware could be the result of technological progress.

He added that malware generation tools are intensifying the problem. The use of malware is providing criminals with a rising number of potential opportunities as the use of technology is on the increase.

Speaking on the topic, Mr. Day said, "Now [there] is what we call malware generation tools [which] let you create different kinds of threats, but they can do it in hundreds and thousands of different guises."

A recent study carried out by Symantec claimed that cybercrime kept on growing during the financial crisis. There has been a cent per cent rise in the amount of new malicious softwares in 2009 as compared with the previous year. Separately, Gartner said that worldwide organizations have plans to hike their spending on security software.

The McAfee security journal contains suggestion that organizations should use common hacker techniques to test the security of their own software and websites before the cyber criminals do.