Interpreting the great malware decline

Is malware on the decline, or is it just better at not getting caught? It’s always been the case that you can build pretty much any kind of theory you like regarding trends within the security threatscape, it just depends on which statistics you choose to base your theory upon. I’ve long since argued that security stats are like the proverbial whore’s drawers: always going up and down. Not just quarter to quarter, but often within the same month if you were to look at half a dozen different reports covering the same period.