One of the most important means for malware to be effective is its selection of an infection vector. An infection vector can be defined as the transmission vehicle that malware uses to spread itself. It is quite natural for malware to gain a wider infection-rate if the vector it chooses is a popular means for communication or collaboration among computers or computer users.

History shows that currently the most popular means for collaboration among computer users has been e-mail. This is why the world has seen the most successful malware exploiting email as it spreads. Some of the other popular means of computer supported collaboration are USENET, IRC, P2P, IM. We have seen a consistent uprise of malware targeting these collaborative systems. Dmitry Gryaznov had described this in his excellent paper “Malware in Popular Networks“.

It might not be possible to predict a complete list of all the infection vectors that malware could use. This list is constantly evolving. We have recently seen malware targeting “orkut”, an internet social network service. There has also been recent reports of worm propagation through social networking websites like “MySpace” and “Xanga”.

Mobile phones are no exception, it is early but the mobile technologies like SMS and Bluetooth are already noticing an uprise of malware.

Well! Malware authors do certainly seem to continually find newer ways to reach places where people are.