Conficker worm infecting 50,000 PCs a day
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Security researchers from Symantec yesterday offered a reminder that the Conficker worm is still circulating and infecting PCs at a clip of 50,000 per day.
"Much of the media hype seems to have died down around Conficker/Downadup, but it is still out there spreading far and wide," Symantec said in a blog post. "In fact, the Symantec threat intelligence team estimate there are 50,000 newly infected PCs a day right now."
The blog post contains a color-coded map that shows the level of Conficker infections by country. The U.S., India and Brazil have the most infections - greater than 340,000 PCs - followed by China and Russia.
Security experts for the Conficker Working Group, which is monitoring the worm, said PCs have been infected at major corporations, including at Microsoft, according to Computerworld.com.
Conficker began spreading late last year through a flaw in Microsoft Windows. Security experts say it has now infected millions of computers worldwide, making it the world's biggest botnet.
The worm has morphed several times through updates from the hackers who control the botnet, including a .E variant that was designed to download a rogue anti virus product.
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