One in five PCs infected with rootkits?

Notes from ClifNotes, Jan 2008, permalink Windows Tips

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed an entry from Tom in his Malware Advisor blog with that glaring headline about one in five PCs with rootkit infections.

The Malware Advisor post pointed to an article at PC World which details results from people scanning with the Prevx CSI service. The statistics from the scans indicated a sharp increase in the number of rootkit infections. In my last issue of this newsletter, I wrote a bit about trying out a new scanner I'd found. It was called Prevx CSI. Small world, ain't it?

After reading Tom's post at Malware Advisor, I went to his security forum and I asked him if he thought there was any truth to the statistics. He didn't disagree with the article, but he hadn't seen any sharp increases in the forums. Later on in that forum thread, Lusher, one of the regulars here, posted his opinions as well.

The PC World article may or may not contain the whole story. In any case, rootkits are something you should worry about and I've posted reviews of a few rootkit scanners you might want to try out sometime.

SophosAntiRootkit

RootkitRevealer

AvgAntiRootkit

BitDefenderRootkitUncover

Here's an additional tip from CC:

http://www.resplendence.com/hookanalyzer (Caution: very geeky)

If you ever have a suspicion that you do have a rootkit or other infections on your PC, be sure to drop by the Temerc forums and post a question for Tom. He'll get back to you lickety-split with just the right advice.

Quote from the website

More than 725,000 PCs were scanned using the Prevx CSI malware scanner over a two-month period. Of the around 291,000 users who scanned their PCs during October 2007, some form of spyware or malware was found on one in six.

Significantly, although rootkits were detected on 15.6% of PCs during October 2007, that figure had risen to 22% by early December.

Read the PC World article here