Computer Security Top 10 Botnet Threats in the United States

Top 10 Botnet Threats in the United States

Did you know that Botnets are some of the most dangerous computer infections around?

Botnets, or groups of compromised computers, have made a huge commotion by spreading malicious infections onto millions of computers around the world over the past few years.

Many of the most popular and dangerous botnets have been identified and compiled into a list of the 10 most active botnets in the United States by online security company Damballa, based in Atlanta, GA.

Many botnets have originated from countries outside of the U.S. but continue to be a threat to millions of computers located inside the United States. Some of the most popular and effective botnets have spread to literally millions of computers around the world including a large majority of vulnerable systems in the United States.

The top 10 Botnet threats in the U.S. list that was published by security company Damballa, is composed of botnets that continue to spread and cause issues through well known sources such as the social network giants Twitter and Facebook. Computer users are advised to take notice to the list below of the top 10 Botnet threats in the U.S.

#1. Zeus

The Zeus Trojan is the number one botnet which has reportedly infected over 3.6 million computers in the United States. Zeus is designed to steal personal information from an infected computer such as credit card numbers, online account credentials and banking log-in data. Zeus is able to perform these malicious actions through injecting malicious HTML forms.

#2. Koobface

The infamous Koobface worm continues to plague many social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Myspace. It has been reported that Koobface has infected 2.9 million computers in the United States alone. Koobface uses fabricated messages sent via social networks that include a malicious link that pretends to be a link to a video. Once such a messages is clicked upon, it will prompt for the installation of a video codec which is a malicious file that infects the computer users system.

#3. TidServ

TidServ is a malicious computer parasite that is usually included as an attachment in a spam message. Once the attachment is downloaded and executed, TidServ will then run in the system background and mask itself with malicious entries in the system registry. TidServ is known to spread rogue security applications. TidServ has infected 1.5 million systems in the United States so far.

#4. Trojan.Fakeavalert

Trojan.Fakeavalert is a computer parasite known for downloading maliciosu software applications without warning to the computer user. Usually Trojan.Fakeavalert downloads rogue anti-spyware programs. Previously, Trojan.Fakeavalert was known as a spamming tool. About 1.2 million computers in the U.S. have been infected by Trojan.Fakeavalert.

#5. TR/Dldr.Agent.JKH

TR/Dldr.Agent.JKH is a botnet that once installed, remains embedded in the system lying dormant until it receives commands from the controlling domain. This Botnet infection is similar to computer parasites that go undetected for months until it start to perform malicious actions as directed by a malicious remote source. TR/Dldr.Agent.JKH is sometimes referred to as a clickbot because of the ads that is able to display onto an infected system’s screen. Clicking on the ads may prompt the download of malware. 1.2 million computers in the U.S. have been infected by TR/Dldr.Agent.JKH.

#6. Monkif

Monkif is a computer parasite that is known to download and install browser helper objects which can compromise your web browser application. Even though 520,000 computers are believed to be infected with Monkif, it remains to be a serious threat to the security of computers connected to the internet.

#7. Hamweq

Hamweq is a autorun worm that has infected upwards of 480,000 computers in the U.S. Hamweq is able to use a backdoor to gain entry into a computer and then multiply after it is installed. Because Hamweq is an autorun parasite, it is able to get onto removable drives and automatically execute once the infected drive is accessed. Hamweq is another parasite that can go undetected by injecting itself into the Explorer.exe process and then load at startup. Hamweq can compromise data stored on the infected system.

#8. Swizzor

Swizzor is a botnet that is known for downloading rogue security applications and Trojans without notification to the computer user. 370,000 computers in the U.S. have been infected with Swizzor.

#9. Gammima

Among the 230,000 computers that Gammima infected in the U.S., the international space station was one of them. Gammima is a computer infection that targets online gaming accounts. Gammima is able to spread through removable drives and embed itself into the Explorer.exe process. Over the internet Gammima is also known as Krap, Frethog, Vakik and Gamina.

#10. Conficker

The Conficker worm was one of the most popular botnets that caused a major uproar in the news media leading up to pre-programmed dates that it was suppose to carry out many malicious actions. At one time Conficker had infected over 9 million computers around the world and now it is thought to have only 210,000 infected systems in the U.S. Conficker is also known as Kudo and Downadup and continues to spread through the internet but has not caused any major damages.

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