A new report released by Barracuda Networks spotlights Twitter trends and tracking, Web threats and trends and e-mail spam and viruses. The company has launched a new security research portal, as well.

The improved availability of high-speed bandwidth and wireless connectivity, coupled with the recent advances in portable computers and mobile devices, has broken the traditional concepts of the network perimeter. The growth of the Web in regard to domain names, sites and pages has outpaced the ability of traditional manual URL filtering capabilities.

Upon reviewing 2009’s fastest growing social networking application Twitter, the report centers on growth drivers, usage trends and the overall Twitter crime rate. Barracuda Labs analyzed more than 19 million Twitter accounts, both valid and malicious, for frequency and content of tweets, user-to-user interactions, and each account’s overall activity level. The report states that only 21 percent of Twitter users are true Twitter users.

“In this report, we highlight some of the shifts in user behavior and the resulting attacker trends across messaging and Web,” said Paul Judge, chief research officer at Barracuda Networks (News – Alert). “As social networking, and specifically Twitter, becomes more ingrained in everyday business, it is crucial to understand the nature of attacks happening on these sites, as well as how users and networks can be compromised.”

As outlined in the report, during the Twitter Red Carpet Era, 49 percent of Twitter users, and 48 of the top 100 most followed Twitter users. The Twitter growth rate jumped by 21.17 percent in April 2009 due to the Twitter Red Carpet Era. The report states that the Twitter Crime Rate increased 66 percent during the Twitter Red Carpet Era.