“After a thorough investigation, we determined that the
Glupteba botnet currently involves approximately 1
million compromised Windows devices worldwide, and
at times, grows at a rate of thousands of new devices per
day,” the company wrote in a blog post.
A botnet is essentially an army of infected computers.
To create Glupteba, the hackers have been found
spreading malware through third-party “free download”
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users click on the link and unknowingly download a
Trojan to their PCs. In one case, the hackers even used a
fake YouTube video downloading site to trick victims
into installing malicious code.
Once a successful infection occurs, the hackers can then
use the malware to install additional malicious
payloads, which can steal login credentials and mine
cryptocurrencies on the infected machine. According to
Google, the culprits have been largely targeting PCs
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The hackers
have been
found
spreading
malware
through third-
party free
download sites.