So, is the worst really over as far as the spyware threat? It would appear that way, but there is still some fear being that some of the sites that have been known to infect in the past are still up.

Although the worst kind of spyware declined during the first quarter, anti-spyware vendor Webroot monitored a dramatic increase in the number of Web sites that host spyware, ready to infect the unwary visitor, the Boulder, Colo.-based company said Monday.

Webroot, which released the results of its for-free spyware auditing tool during 2004 on an ad hoc basis, formalized its data collection in the first official quarterly report to provide a benchmark going forward, said Richard Stiennon, the director of Webroot’s threat research team.

“We want to make sure everyone knows that ‘Hey, this is a big problem, even if the stats are showing a decline in system monitors,’” said Stiennon. [Read the rest]