Researchers at security firm, McAfee catalogued more than 10 million new pieces of malware virus codes in the fist half of the year recording an all time high number.

The second biggest producer of anti-Virus software said that the hackers took advantage of events like FIFA World Cup in South Africa to spread spam and malware to computers around the world.

"Our latest threat report depicts that malware has been on a steady incline in the first half of 2010. It's also obvious that cybercriminals are becoming more in tune with what the general public is passionate about from a technology perspective and using it to lure unsuspecting victims,” said Mike Gallagher, McFee's chief technology officer of global threat intelligence.

He said that the security firms should not remain responsive to the problem but should be able to predict the trends in cyber crimes. The firm warns that they have detected viruses that might be capable of penetrating into Apple MAC which has so far been immune to the threat.

In an earlier report, the firm had detected a virus that modifies the contents of the clipboard or opens and closes CD panels of the systems. The company had said that this reminds that the users of all of the OS must protect their systems from cyber criminals.