According to a recent McAfee report, the year 2010 will witness Adobe surpassing Microsoft as the primary target for hackers and virus writers. Thus far, Microsoft, which holds a leading stake of the operating system, office productivity, and Web browser markets, has been the most common target for malware attacks.

But, with the Apple Mac OS X, the Mozilla Firefox and the Google Chrome gaining notable shares of the Web browser market, their chances of being targeted by malware are evidently on the increase.

However, as per the predictions of the McAfee net security firm, since Adobe, with Flash and Acrobat Reader, has marked its virtual omnipresence across all operating system platforms and Web browsers, it is apparently on its way to become an all-in-one target for malware developers.

As per the McAfee report, "Cybercriminals have long picked on Microsoft products due to their popularity. In 2010, we anticipate Adobe software, especially Acrobat Reader and Flash, will take the top spot."

George Kurtz, the McAfee chief technology officer, further elucidated that "Adobe has added so much functionality to their software they are suffering the same fate as Microsoft with Internet Explorer."

In addition, McAfee has also predicted that, in the coming year, hacking attacks will become more severe as well as more forceful at the users of social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter.