Privacy, Security & Virus Information

China is a Hot Bed of Internet Viruses

The vast industrial giant that China has become in the last decade has changed many things in the industrialised World. But let's be honest and say that sometimes their business ethics leave a little something to be desired. The recent Google withdrawal from the search engine market in China and reports that many of the World's powerful viruses emanate from this vast nation makes them a force to be reckoned yet to be wary of.

It is scant comfort to know that while China may be emerging as one of the leading sources of internet viruses, they are also the county whose computers have been most badly affected by viruses themselves, among them the most virulent.

For example, almost a quarter of the world's computers infected with the Conficker worm can be found in China, with around seven million found to be infected with Conficker B at the end of 2010, according to a recent security report posted on China's National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team (CNCERT). For those of you who have yet to encounter Conficker, it is one of the most powerful malwares currently active and exceptionally difficult to expunge once it has succeeded to infiltrate a computer. Security experts estimate that the numbers of computers being controlled as botnets to distribute the virus by their controllers could run into the hundreds of thousands. The prospect of using this vast network of infected computers, to launch a crippling attack by ordering all of the computers to contact a victim server at the same time is a source of great worry for virus protection software developers.

Malware is a growing problem worldwide, but in China the problem is especially acute. Over four percent of China's more than 380 million Internet users run no security software whatsoever, meaning that fifteen million computers could be potential malware time bombs. Software piracy is a major problem also, with millions of unlicensed versions of Windows XP running without any form of security updates.

On a more positive front, reports are that the number of PCs controlled by Trojan horses and botnets is on the decrease although still frighteningly high. A mere 260,000 PCs controlled by Trojans and close to a million computers are controlled by botnets.

To stem the tide of the expected yellow wave of internet viruses, it is everyone's responsibility to ensure that their computer's security is in the hands of the most powerful security software in the World, and that means McAfee.

 

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