Microsoft: Bot, Trojan Infections High; Rootkits Low

["Fergie" <fergdawg () netzero net>]

Pretty staggering numbers...

Via eWeek.

[snip]

New statistics from Microsoft's anti-malware engineering team have
confirmed fears that backdoor Trojans and bots present a "significant"
threat to Windows users.

However, according to data culled from the software maker's security
tools, stealth rootkit infections are on the decrease, perhaps due to
the addition of anti-rootkit capabilities in security applications.

The latest malware infection data, released at the RSA Europe
conference in Nice, France, covers the first half of 2006. During that
period, Microsoft found more than 43,000 new variants of bots and
backdoor Trojans that control millions of hijacked Windows machines in
for-profit botnets.

Of the 4 million computers cleaned by the company's MSRT (malicious
software removal tool), about 50 percent (2 million) contained at least
one backdoor Trojan. While this is a high percentage, Microsoft notes
that this is a decrease from the second half of 2005. During that
period, the MSRT data showed that 68 percent of machines cleaned by the
tool contained a backdoor Trojan.

[snip]

More:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2036439,00.asp

- ferg


--
"Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson
 Engineering Architecture for the Internet
 fergdawg(at)netzero.net
 ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/


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