'The world virus map is an excellent resource for quickly understanding the virus situation at any given time,' said Mikko Hypponen, Chief Research Officer at F-Secure said, as his company introduced the concept of 'virus maps' - a visual representations of virus infections worldwide. 'For anybody interested in understanding the 'bigger picture' behind a virus in the news and charting its course, this is a good place to start.'

 "With a virus map we can plot viruses in real-time or see an elapsed history," added Hypponene, who explained how, after blogging about this system, he had gotten requests from our users to make a version that would be available for everyone online.

"So just what we've done with F-Secure World Map," he said.

The resource, he continued, is now available to the general public in four languages: English, French, German and Finnish.

Visitors to the part of the F-Secure site devoted to these maps will first see the full world map situation but will quickly be able to drill down for information based on a geographical area or country.

Colour representations of infection levels from quiet to epidemic give the viewer an immediate overview of a country or region. Another measure enables the viewer to understand virus alert levels from an overall global perspective.

Related graphs and statistics help users to understand the broader context of the infection based upon time lines ranging from the last hour to the last year as well as a breakdown of the viruses in question

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