McAfee has released its 2009 threat predictions. The top trend for 2009 is the continued exploitation of the financial crisis to scam users with fake financial services, fake investment firms and fake legal services.

“Computer users face a dangerous one-two punch today,” said Jeff Green, senior vice president of McAfee Avert Labs, McAfee’s research group.

“The current economic crisis is delivering a blow to our financial well-being, while malware authors are taking advantage of our distraction to deliver a roundhouse strike.”

Cybercriminals have moved to the Internet cloud as their main delivery vehicle and take advantage of the attractions of Web 2.0. McAfee expects this trend to continue throughout 2009.

Threats will continue to take evasive action against security measures. One example is single use binary files, which are an attacker’s equivalent of a single use credit card number used by consumers when shopping online. These binaries help to create a large amount of threats, which will make more difficult for victims to describe their attackers, and make it harder for defenders to catch them.

McAfee predicts increased attacks involving USB sticks and flash memory devices used in camera, picture frames and other electronics.

Last year McAfee saw the malware underground use mainstream practices in an effort to “sell” software that was either misleading or fraudulent. This trend will continue as cybercriminals still see a lucrative market in this area.

Spam traffic dropped significantly when ISPs shutdown spam host McColo Corp., the source of up to 60 percent of global spam. In 2009, there will be a continued shift in organizations, from passive support of law enforcement to an active role of working with ISPs and global Internet organizations such as ICANN.