Panda Security, the Cloud Security Company, today announced that PandaLabs, the company’s laboratory for detecting and analyzing malware, has published an analysis of major malware campaigns in 2009 and determined that cybercriminals are more frequently using current events as their primary vehicles for distributing malware.

Michael Jackson’s death, swine flu and Barack Obama’s political campaign and presidency have been the top issues used by hackers in the past year to distribute viruses via email or through social media such as Twitter or Facebook. By being aware of people’s increasing use of the Internet to search for the latest news on social events, virus creators are relying upon highly trafficked terms and the latest news items as bait to spread viruses.

Issues involving applications for spying on partners when suspecting infidelity are also highly successful. For example, attackers have been offering applications that supposedly allow people to read the SMS messages sent or received on a specific cell phone via the Internet.

PandaLabs’ study of the top issues cybercriminals used from January to July to distribute viruses resulted in the following breakdown:

Via.Tech.Xav.