A Sunbelt researcher today found a ThreatNet scan result from a machine with six identifiable malware threats on it. One of them Trojan.Brontok, had 102,793 traces. That was on one machine!
Alert for things that might be going wrong, he emailed several other analysts:
“Just trying to understand, how is that possible?”
Yep it was possible. Even old threats can overrun a PC if it doesn’t have proper malware protection.
ThreatNet is an early warning system made up of tens of thousands of VIPRE and CounterSpy users who have set their machines to send Sunbelt a record of malcode that they detect. ThreatNet helps us detect virus outbreaks.
Trojan.Brontok is a detection for a group of mass-mailing worms that spreads by sending copies of themselves via e-mail attachments. It gathers e-mail addresses from infected machines in order to propagate.
It disables security applications, spreads through USB drives and has been used in denial of service attacks.
Thanks to Eric Howes and Adam Thomas
Tom Kelchner