The study from Barracuda Networks claims that creators of malware often link their software to topics that are trending on Twitter in an attempt to trick users into downloading.
For the report, the company carried out 5.5 million searches for 25 000 different trending topics and found that Google presents links to malware in 69% of cases. Yahoo, meanwhile, scored just 18% in the study while Bing was just 12%.
Key findings of the research included the fact that there now over 100 million Twitter accounts generating more than 50 million tweets per day, although only 28.87% of Twitter users are actual 'True Twitter' users.
According to Barracuda, the average amount of time for a trending topic to appear on one of the major search engines after appearing on Twitter varies tremendously from 1.2 days for Google to 4.3 days for Bing, and 4.8 days for Yahoo.
In addition, the IT security networking firm says that over half of the malware found was between the hours of 4:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. GMT, with the top 10 terms used by malware distributors including the name of a NFL player, three actresses, a Playboy playmate and a college student who faked his way into Harvard.
On the Twitter front, meanwhile, the report says that activity is increasing on the microblogging service as more and more users coming online. And, says the study, as users become more active, the malicious activity also increases.
Half of Twitter users tweet less than once a day, adds the report, yet one in 10 users tweet five or more times a day and 30% of Twitter accounts have never tweeted.
Interestingly, the research found that only one in 10 users is following more than 100 users, and almost half are following less than five.
Commenting on the figures, Paul Judge, Barracuda's chief research officer, said that Google was the top source for malware primarily because of its market share.
"Google has over 60% of the search market share. This is similar to how Microsoft's operating system has been known to be more targeted by attackers over the years because of its market share", he said.
"Users should realize that they must still be wary of suspicious activity even from seemingly legitimate sites. Also users should install some form of URL filtering or web security product either on their computer or at the gateway of their network", he added.
According to Judge, many of these attacks could be identified with existing technologies but people need to at least use any one of those technologies in order to be protected.