Sophos is offering a free white paper analysis of security threats the company identified in the first six months of 2007. According to the security company, small targeted attacks were the preferred approach, rather than high profile attacks. The Web is also particularly favored as an attack vector.

Sophos also reports that its security software now must protect against nearly 50,000 more attack types than it did in December 2006. According to the company, the motivation for these attacks is largely financial, either through stealing financial access information or by generating ad revenue.

The largest number of Web infections were experienced by Web servers running Apache, and China has moved into the number one spot for malware hosting, bumping the United States to second place. The company estimates that nearly 1 in 300 emails are infected with malware attachments, and new threats include infected PDFs, JPGs, and GIFs, as well as viruses designed to target removable disk drives.

The full report can be downloaded at Sophos.