10,352 active botnets (was Re: register.com down sev0?)

Thu Oct 26 14:16:28 UTC 2006

On Thursday 26 Oct 2006 13:45, you wrote:
> 
> Is there a similar statistic available for Mac OS X ?

Now now.

> > "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."

A lot depends on the definition.

I've removed some malware trying to exploit an old Microsoft JRE bug. This 
stuff gets everywhere (well anywhere IE goes).

These get downloaded to some cached program folder for Java, and because the 
exploit hasn't worked for years, sit there till some antivirus software comes 
along and removes them, doing nowt but consuming disk space.

If you are the Microsoft malicious software removal tool marketing department, 
that is a trojan removed. To the average person on the street, it is another 
bit of meaningless fluff their PC will lose when they reinstall.

So yes, Microsoft is big enough to have bits who have a vested interest in 
making the other bits look bad (if only incidentally). Thus is the way of big 
companies.