Yesterday evening I interviewed Graham Cluley at IT security specialists Sophos. Every six months they publish a “threat report” signaling to the market the creepy new pieces of malware that are emerging and the tricks spammers, fraudsters and other nefarious types are trying on the unsuspecting computing public. In addition to the rise of Mac-related malware (subject of my column today in The Times), is a disturbing trend of spam blogs hosting nasty exploits. What does this mean exactly? Spammers are too frequently being shot down by improved email filters, making it more difficult to sell get-rich-quick schemes and Viagra. As a result, they are turning to blog publishing software like Blogger to hawk these offers, creating bogus web sites that purport to be about, say, personal finance or health care, when the sole rationale is to direct wayward clickers to dodgy merchants. Sophos says they now detect a new spam site every 20 seconds. In the time, it’s taken you to read this, three new ones have appeared. Google, I realise you’ve got a lot on your plate at the moment, but it’s time to crack down on spam bloggers. The state of blogosphere is at stake.

- Bernhard