McAfee (Nasdaq: MCAF) publicly introduced a new virus map today company officials promise will give users real-time information about worldwide virus activity.

The World Virus Map, part of the Sunnyvale-based company's ongoing research efforts to better understand the global virus phenomenon, culminated in the scanning of nearly 39 billion files, from which researchers say they found approximately 20% of computers to be infected with a virus.

Most recently, the resource alerted the company to a significant increase in the number of AOL users infected with a strain of the "APStrojan.qa."

McAfee's ASP infrastructure works by obtaining user permission to collect and compile virus information from the company's estimated 780,000 subscribers around the world, scanning their systems each day, and posting the results on the site. Results are added to a database which compiles information about the user's geographical location, how many files were scanned and which viruses were detected. The findings are then displayed on a world map, inside which users may click to see virus activity over the past 24 hours, 7 days or 30 days, on a U.S. state, country, continent or worldwide scale.

"The advantage of our ASP model is that we can instrument computers worldwide to detect the thousands of viruses 'in the wild' in real-time," explains Doug Cavit, CIO of McAfee. "By having this valuable intelligence on hand, we are able to track virus trends, anticipate outbreaks, alert the public to them and more rapidly deploy solutions when an outbreak does occur."

The map also displays a list of "Top 10 Viruses Worldwide" that provides the names of viruses about which researchers think users should be most aware. The following are Wednesday's Top 10 viruses identified by McAfee.com in the past 30 days:

• 1. VBS/LoveLetter@MM
• 2. APStrojan.qa@MM
• 3. W95/MTX.gen@M
• 4. W32/FunLove.gen
• 5. 32/Kriz.4050
• 6. W32/Hybris.plugin@M
• 7. W97M/Ethan.a
• 8. W95/CIH.1003a
• 9. W97M/Marker.gen About McAfee.com
• 10. W32/Hybris.plugin@MM

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