Botnet malware proliferates on Windows PCs
Malicious remote control software continues to be one of the biggest threats to Windows PCs, according to a new Microsoft security report.
More than 43,000 new variants of such insidious software were found in the first half of 2006, making them the most active category of malicious software, Microsoft said in a Security Intelligence Report published on Monday. In June Microsoft also flagged zombies as the most prevalent threat to Windows PCs.
"Attackers, with financial gain in mind, are clearly concentrating a significant amount of development focus on this category of malware," Microsoft said in the report.
Of 4 million Windows PCs found to be infected with some kind of malicious software in the first half of this year, about 2 million were running malicious remote control software, Microsoft said. The data is collected by Microsoft's free Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool, which runs when security updates are installed on Windows PCs.
