Having a computer virus can be a scary, expensive, and sometimes, even dangerous thing to deal with. A virus can cause serious damage to your computer, corrupting files on your hard drive, and slowing down your computer’s processor by adding pop-ups or other malicious software that could render your computer, virtually, unusable. There are plenty of different viruses out there, but one is making headlines now due to theft!So what is the new malware that is corrupting peoples’ computers across the internet? It is a software called “Sirefef botnet, or ZeroAccess. The malware was designed to steal from advertising companies that pay to have their advertisements on different sites. While the virus itself is not technically putting the money anywhere, such as in a Swiss bank account or into a some shady company located in the Caribbean Islands like you see in the movies, yet it’s still costing advertisement companies quite a lot of money. The virus will infect the computer, and will the direct the computer to click on some 48 ads, or so, per hour. With the infected computers causing the clicks on ads to continue to jump, it is causing the advertising companies to pay fees for the fake clicks as they are not real human traffic. The virus has already costed companies an estimated $2.7 million for each month that the virus has been active.In case you were a bit concerned about where the virus has been lurking, it has been affecting any device that is running a Windows OS. It’s been hijacking various search results, attaching itself to the link, and then downloads itself onto the victims computer after the link has been clicked. Well Microsoft and the FBI are not taking this crime sitting down.Microsoft does, in fact, have a digital crime unit for situations just like this and the division has technically “successfully disrupted” the malware. “How?”, you may ask. Well based off of what both Microsoft’s digital crime unit division and the FBI have done in tandem, that have effectively increased the cost and risk for cybercriminals and hackers to continue conducting their fraudulent business. The have effectively halted the botnet program’s efforts, for now at least.Research on the virus done by the University of California showed that roughly 1.9 million different computers were infected with the virus back in October. The other frightening fact was that 800,000 out of those 1.9 million get on the internet daily, which is in turn costing many of the online advertisers more and more money.
While yes the virus has been disrupted, it is not yet fully out of sight. The FBI and Microsoft are still using all of their resources to crack down on these cybercriminals and hackers that have infected many home and business computers already.
Getting a computer virus is no laughing matter. If you feel that your computer, or other device running windows, may be infected, be sure to have it tested and update your anti-virus software if you have not done so already. It could mean the difference between a clean computer and an infected one.
