HERNDON, Va., Feb. 18 (UPI) -- More than 70,000 computers from 2,500 companies have been infected with the Kneber botnet, an Internet watchdog said Thursday.
NetWitness Corp. of Virginia said the attack is used to reap user names and passwords to gain access to financial information, social networking Internet sites and e-mail. The rogue software has been circulating for about 18 months and is known to have gathered about 75 gigabytes of data.
NetWitness issued a statement, saying, "Disturbingly, the data (were) only a one-month snapshot of data from a campaign that has been in operation for more than a year."
The Wall Street Journal said some of the companies involved were Merck & Co. and Paramount Pictures. Additionally networks of 10 government agencies had been breached by Kneber.
The Journal said the botnet software is spread when a computer user opens phishing e-mail that links to the code.
