Germany's federal Office for Information Security, or BSI, released the report, which pointed toward a steady increase in virus-laden spam, as well as the proliferation of free-range viruses and Trojan horses that can infect a computer without any input from the user.
"The situation is serious — it is even more catastrophic than we feared," said Hartmut Isselhorst of the BSI. "We are all being attacked. As soon as we go online we become the target of attacks."
One such virus that made the rounds online recently was a packet of malicious code that hid in a file called "Greasemonkey" and attacked Firefox users. The virus could infect a computer either through download or even passively, in a so-called "drive-by" infection.
When activated, the malware used Javascript to collect password information from several banks, including Barclays, Wachovia, Bank of America and PayPal. It then sends the information to a server in Russia.
Isselhorst added that hackers commitment to constant innovation has made protecting consumers much more difficult. A poll by tech firm Bitkom indicated that a mere 19 percent of consumers had installed some kind of anti-virus software, while 45 percent have never installed any kind of firewall to protect their system.
Coupled with those disturbing statistics is the casual users willingness to share all kinds of information online through social networking sites. Isselhorst cautioned against such sites.
Users have many options for fighting malware and viruses. One simple one is Google's StopBadware.org.