After being on the run for three weeks, John McAfee was arrested on Wednesday by Guatemalan police, who said they would seek to expel the antivirus founder to Belize. McAfee had been identified as "a person of interest" in the murder of Gregory Faull, an American expatriate who was shot to death in his home in San Pedro Town on the island of Ambergris Caye. The two men and former neighbors had a history of arguing over various issues, including the time Fauli filed a complaint against McAfee for firing off guns and exhibiting "roguish behavior." The last known dispute they had was over dogs.

While most of us were relaxing over the Labor Day weekend, the folks at McAfee were finishing up the security firm's second quarter Threat Report (PDF) for 2012. In it, McAfee Labs noted a 1.5 million increase in malware since the previously quarter, as well as a number of new threats like mobile "drive-by downloads" and using Twitter to control mobile botnets. All combined, McAfee detected the largest number of malware in four years.

Two security issues have been identified in McAfee's SaaS Total Protection anti-malware software suite, one of which could allow an attacker to misuse an ActiveX control to execute code and turn affected PCs into spam servers. The other vulnerability involves a misuse of McAfee's "rumor" technology to allow an attacker to use an affected machine as an "open relay," which could also be used to send spam. Fixes for both are coming.

Success always comes at a cost, and for Google's immensely popular open source Android platform, success has attracted the attention of malware writers. In fact, Android is again the most targeted mobile platform on the planet by malware authors, and during a time when mobile malware growth is at an all-time high, according to McAfee's Third-Quarter Threats Report for 2011.