Malware most often spread by visiting malicious Web sites

Computer users are their own worst enemies, a security company warned Monday as it released data that showed software bugs were the source of just 5% of the year's infections.

The majority of the attacks carried out by 2008's top 100 pieces of malware were caused by users surfing to malicious sites, then accepting some kind of download, Trend Micro Inc. researchers said Monday.

From Jan. 1 to Nov. 25, the top 100 attack programs infected 53% of their victims by duping them into downloading something from the Internet. An additional 12% of the infections tracked globally were caused by users opening e-mail attachments.

Just 5% of the infections were related to an exploit of a software vulnerability, said Trend's analysis.

"This is what we've been seeing all year," said Paul Ferguson, network architect at Trend Micro Inc. "This illustrates that social engineering seems to be playing a larger role than we thought. The problem isn't due to software vulnerabilities in, say, the browser."

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