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AVG Research is claiming that one in 10 of all PCs is infected by malware controlled by cybercriminals using the ‘Eleonore’ exploit toolkit.
The security software firm monitored 165 domains controlled by cybercriminals using the commercial attack software toolkit over a two-month period, during which time it tracked more than 1.2 million infected computers.
Out of 12 million worldwide users visiting compromised web pages, the firm said the toolkit had a 10 per cent infection success rate that could enable cybercriminals to infect and monitor around one in every ten potentially compromised PCs.
A white paper detailing the study said the toolkit targets known vulnerabilities. It particularly highlighted older versions ofMicrosoft’s web browser, where Internet Explorer (IE) 6 alone accounted for one-third of all infections.
After IE6, all the most popular browsers were shown to be vulnerable, including IE7, IE8, Chrome 4.1, Firefox 3.6 and 3.6, and Opera 9.64 and 9.80. Apple’s Safari browser fared best against Eleonore attacks, allowing just 2.8 per cent of machines running it to be infected.
Adobe Acrobat and Sun JavaScript were also noted for providing the means of infection for a significant number of PCs.
