New botnets dwarf Conficker threat
The Conficker worm, which has set off many a recent security alarm bell, may just be a small fry, compared to the growing number of botnets, viruses, and worms infecting cyberspace.
According to a report released on Tuesday from security vendor McAfee (PDF), cybercriminals have hijacked 12 million new computers since January with an array of new malware. This represents a 50 percent increase in the number of "zombie" computers over 2008.
The United States now hosts the world's largest percentage of infected computers, 18 percent, according to the McAfee report. China is next on McAfee's list, hosting 13.4 percent of the world's infected PCs. "The massive expansion of these botnets provides cybercriminals with the infrastructure they need to flood the Web with malware," Jeff Green, senior vice president of McAfee Avert Labs, said in a statement. "Essentially, this is cybercrime enablement."
