Saturday 14 March 2015

Six Million Windows Computers Infected Via Spam Messages


In less than 2.5 months more than six million Windows computers have been infected by users links and infected attachments opened in spam messages, as Microsoft has announced. It involves the Upatre malware mainly social engineering applied and is spread mainly through emails.

Upatre performs various functions on an infected computer. So can install other malware families that use the computer to send spam messages or search for valuable data. The malware is mainly active in the United States, where Microsoft 5.3 million infections observed. Ireland following distance by about 790,000 infections. Also in Canada, Britain and Australia tens of thousands of computers were infected through Upatre.


"Upatre manages to penetrate by applying age-old social engineering tricks. It knows how to seduce people by getting them to click on links in spam messages," says Patrick Estavillo of the Microsoft Malware Protection Center. In addition to not click on links and advises attachments in emails Estavillo to keep all software up to date and use a virus scanner.

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