Internet users are being urged to make better use of anti-virus software, as new research suggests that the identity theft malware infection rate is likely to increase by 336 per cent in 2009.

The Panda Security study of 67 million computers in 2008 showed that 1.1 per cent of worldwide online users had been actively exposed to identity theft malware over the course of the year. In a post on its PandaLabs blog, the firm revealed that three million audited users in the US and over 10 million users worldwide had been infected with identity theft-based malware in 2008.

According to the security firm, active malware is malicious software that is loaded onto a user's PC and runs actively as a process. Typically, users who had been infected with malware over the course of the study were those who utilised online services like banking, shopping and social networking. Online security software packages require frequent upgrades to ensure that they are tackling new and improved malware in the online sphere.

However, according to the Panda Security study, 35 per cent of infected PCs had up-to-date anti-virus software installed. Sean-Paul Correll said in the company's blog: "Antivirus labs are receiving a massive amount of new malware samples each day (22,000 new samples per day according to PandaLabs), and antivirus vendors are continually updating their services to keep up with the overwhelming volume of new malware surfacing each day.

"AV detection labs such as PandaLabs have made advances in automated detection and classification capabilities. These new detection methods as well as improved surveillance and cloud-based detection techniques have reduced the risk of individual identity theft incidents and its associated costs."