1. Cyber-criminals build an extensive infrastructure comprised of thousands of unique domains, servers and websites that work together to funnel users to a malicious payload.

2. Aiding the cyber-criminals in their effort to stalk users is the growing use of Web analytics, visitor tracking and reporting sites. In six months, the percentage of requests nearly doubled. While these sites are often legitimate, this same technology can be used to provide valuable information that helps cyber-criminals more effectively target their attacks.

3. Search engines continue to dominate as a key entry point into malnets, representing more 35 per cent of all attacks.

4. By exploiting known vulnerabilities, cyber-criminals install malware onto a user's systems. Often, the malware is a botnet-producing Trojan that will infect the end-user system. It is not uncommon to find multiple botnets being distributed by the same malnet and multiple botnets on the same end-user system.

5. For the first nine months of 2012, there were nearly one million requests to command and control servers that were part of the largest malnet on the Internet. These activities perpetuate and self-nurture the malnet that was responsible for luring the user to malware in the first place.