Clarkson, whose company is behind the Bouncer security whitelisting system – recently updated to version 6.0 – says that, not only has malware become stealthier in recent times, it has multiplied in variety and volume at an unmanageable rate.

"According to Sean-Paul Correll, a threat researcher at Panda Security, in 2006 the growth in malware samples was doubling year-after-year. By 2009, that number jumped to 25 million new strains, more than the previous 20 years combined", he said.

Writing in his security blog, Clarkson, who was previously with Trend Micro and NetIQ, says that through to July of this year, this number grew to 46.6 million malware samples – almost 100% growth over the last year, with five months remaining.

And although anti-virus security companies have responded with new technologies to detect more sophisticated attacks, he says that security experts such as Golden Richard III – a professor of computer science at the University of New Orleans – notes that anti-virus software programmers are losing the battle.

"The viruses are winning because the defenses don't work very well. It's much harder to be on defense. And the offensive guys are really smart, they've got a lot of resources. It' a bleak situation", he said.

Clarkson went on to cite Danny Quist, a malware specialist with Offensive Computing, as saying that modern malware uses many different ways to conceal itself from the most advanced anti-virus software, which only detects 40–70% of infections.

"The most recent example is the latest incarnation of the Stuxnet worm, which uses techniques to evade anti-virus detection and install itself on Windows systems to access SCADA environments", he said.