Almost all major world events generate a flood of spam and malware, when people's fascination for news over-rides their normal caution about opening files and emails from unknown sources.
It's not just spammers who are taking advantage of people's worries and interest in swine flu, malware writers are also getting in on the act.
One example, spotted by Symantec Security Response, is an infected PDF analysed a malicious Adobe PDF document named "Swine influenza frequently asked questions.pdf." When you try to view the PDF file, a malicious file is dropped onto your computer.