Once upon a time when the Internet was young and hackers wanted to draw attention to just how capable they were, the usual form of manifestation was causing as much trouble as possible with a single attack. Security companies refined their detection and fight-back tools, so now the fight has been taken to the next level. No longer is a cyber criminal happy with scoring a major hit, now it's all about expanding the network of malware redistributing hosts, while the firms dealing with producing security software try to keep that expansion in check.

The standard by which malicious code is effective is determined by whether or not it's detected by anti-virus scanners, as The Register's John Leyden underlines. The malware is fine-tuned by submitting it to testing with the best security products. Spanish anti-virus firm Panda Software noted that the tools used by cyber criminals are technically similar to Hispasec's Virus Total.

"This recent increase of malware collaboration is very worrying and poses an active threat to security systems," said Dominic Hoskins of Panda Security UK. "Participating in such forums, exchanging knowledge and testing new malware ideas helps cyber crooks facilitate the development of more effective malware," he continued.

By the looks of it, a new generation of malware is headed our way, turning the tide of war against the cavalry that's fighting it. The worst part is that malware coders are getting help from people in the know, that have had previous experience with security tools and can outthink the next, say, update and tweak the virus so as it will go undetected. At any rate, there's no need for a piece of code to stay in the dark while spreading for more than a day or so, because the spread grows exponentially with every new infected host.