More than 30,000 PCs per day are being recruited into secret networks that spread spam and viruses, a study shows.
Six months ago only 2,000 Windows machines per day were being recruited into these so-called bot nets.
Experts say the numbers are growing quickly because the remotely controlled networks are so useful to people who profit from hacking and virus writing...
Nigel Beighton, a member of Symantec's Threat Team, said the number of PCs being enrolled in these networks was the stand out statistic for the latest report which covers the first six months of 2004.
The peak of new recruits was 75,000 in one day.
This high watermark was hit when the creators of the MyDoom and Bagle viruses were conducting an online war that resulted in many different versions of their malicious programs being released.
Once created the networks of zombie PCs are used as anonymous relays for spam, to launch denial of service attacks on websites or simply to steal confidential information about a PC's owner.
