Security teams at Symantec and Verizon are painting an alarming picture of how dangerous the internet is becoming.

Most are familiar with the big threats reported last year that included the Heartbleed, major retailer attacks and Sony's breach.

What is alarming the IT professionals is the latest report that says that more than 317 million new pieces of malware -- computer viruses or other malicious software -- were created last year. That works out to almost 1 million pieces of malware per day.

What the researchers found was that nearly 90% of the attacks were directed at flaws that have been around since 2002 and never patched.

Verizon security data scientist Bob Rudis said: "While it seems like a no brainer to fix some of these things, organizations care more about making widgets. They just don't have the manpower or time."

As mentioned in our report on spam, it only takes 82 seconds before someone clicks on a malicious email. Once they gain access to the network, they then proceed to try to infect another similar company.

The ways they are making the attacks include:

Digital extortion: Hackers steal data or photos from a victims computer and try to blackmail the victim.

More sophisticated attacks: Malware is hidden in updates and the company is basically infecting themselves.

Social Media: Scams are rampant on social media sites where friends pass on the infected links to other friends and the scam proliferates.

Source: CCN