infected

According to a new report, nearly one in every eight home networks in North America is infected with malware. Experts consider about half of those threats to be "serious." The study comes from Mountain View, California's Kindsight Security Labs. In ... its third-quarter malware report, the company indicates that 13 per cent of all home networks are infected. Kindsight's report suggests that about 6.5 per cent of these infections are serious enough to have converted the computers on the infected network into a botnet , or are capable of compromising a user's information security. ZeroAccess Botnet ... (view more)

Is your new PC already infected with malware? It's possible, experts say. According to a new report, a number of computers recently built in China are not only shipping with counterfeit software but also come laced with malware. Thanks to ... "bloatware" -- the pre-loaded third-party trial software included with most new computers -- getting a new system to run the way you want can be a real hassle. However, finding your new PC pre-loaded with malware is downright frightening. But that's exactly what Microsoft says it found on some new computers built and distributed in China. Microsoft Files ... (view more)

With their FBI-supplied lifeline severed, early Monday morning tens of thousands of computers still infected with dangerous DNS Changer virus lost their ability to surf the Internet. However, it appears that a flurry of media reports warning ... computer users about the potential problem has prevented the shut-down from having a significant impact. DNS Changer was a virus that spread across the Internet back in 2009. Originating in eastern Europe, an FBI investigation resulted in the operation's termination in 2011. The servers involved were seized. However, the FBI voluntarily refrained from ... (view more)

The creators of the Flame virus now appear to be attempting to remove it from the computers it has infected. This bizarre move from hackers, who normally seek to increase rather than decrease the number of machines their code infects, may be part of ... a belated attempt to prevent further analysis of how Flame works. The existence of Flame was announced late last month by security firm Kaspersky Lab. At the time, Kaspersky noted the virus was exceptionally sophisticated and had been designed specifically to harvest data using tactics as diverse as taking screenshots and eavesdropping on phone ... (view more)

Prominent security firm Sophos has discovered that approximately one out of every five Mac computers is infected with Windows malware. And while such infections pose little threat to the Macs themselves, they could spread to Windows computers. The ... report is the result of Sophos' work in analyzing the contents of about 100,000 Apple Macintosh computers, using the company's own anti-virus software for the Mac world. The analysis shows that 20 per cent of the computers are carrying some kind of Windows-oriented malware. About 2.7 per cent of the Mac computers, or about one in thirty-seven of the ... (view more)

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) says that computers infected with a particular type of malware could lose their Internet connections this coming summer. Fortunately, there appears to be relatively simple solution for the problem. According ... to the FBI, computers infected with the malware called "DNSChanger," which first emerged in 2007 and which has since infected millions of computers worldwide, could go offline in July, 2012, until repaired. Cybercriminals Have Re-Routed Internet Traffic Normally, when a computer user enters a web address into their browser, their computer ... (view more)

You might normally expect hackers to operate in secret, and to communicate through hidden channels. The group behind a notorious social networking virus, however, appears to be actively and publicly posting about the sites which they attack. ... Facebook has apparently tracked down what it believes to be a group of five men responsible for the notorious "Koobface" virus and has publicly named them. So far, the men have not been confirmed as under investigation by law enforcement, nor have they been formally charged. The company says it will publish further details in coming weeks to ... (view more)

Seven people have been indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice for allegedly infiltrating millions of computers and using them to pocket some $14 million in fraudulent advertising revenue. Six of the defendants hail from Estonia and one from ... Russia. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the seven were able to gain access to an estimated four million computers worldwide, and infect them with a form of malware that successfully diverted web traffic to sites that would pay the scheme's participants a percentage of advertising revenue. When users of these infected computers attempted to ... (view more)

Google has launched a new service designed to warn users that they are infected with a particular type of Windows malware. However, the move has raised concerns that it could make things easier for scammers. Web Pages Redirected Using Malicious ... Proxy Server The service is actually integrated with Google's search results page, and the warning message will only display when a computer appears to be infected. (Source: thetechherald.com ) The Google strategy involves a specific form of malicious software that affects Windows computers. When users attempt to visit a webpage, their visit is routed ... (view more)

Microsoft is offering a $250,000 reward for information regarding the owners of the Rustock spam botnet , despite the fact the it has already been neutralized. Rustock at one point infected an estimated one million computers. Those behind it used ... the network to send as many as 30 million spam messages a day, most commonly selling counterfeit drugs. (Source: latimes.com ) Although the botnet has been brought under control, there's still a threat because its creators remain at large. As a result, Microsoft has issued a bounty. The reward is $250,000 and will be paid to anyone who provides "new ... (view more)