An IT security firm has reported a large rise in the number of computers hijacked by hackers since the beginning of the year.
Hackers have been busy in the first three months of the year, according to the latest quarterly threat report from IT security firm McAfee.
Since the beginning of the year, some 12 million computers have been compromised by cybercriminals, McAfee research suggests, marking a 50 percent increase since last year. The USA has the largest percentage of these infected machines - labelled botnets - with 18 percent of the total.
Hackers use botnets for a number of purposes, including sending out spam. Spam levels were hit badly in November last year when the McColo Corp host was taken down, but McAfee believes the increase in botnets could cause spam to return to previous levels.
However, McAfee Avert Labs senior vice president Jeff Green warned that hackers could also be using the machines for more nefarious purposes.
"The massive expansion of these botnets provides cybercriminals with the infrastructure they need to flood the web with malware," he said. "Essentially, this is cybercrime enablement."
Malware refers to programs which can be used to compromise victims' financial details. The McAfee report suggested malware writers are increasingly using legitimate websites to spread their software, as well as using a number of techniques to hide their actual location.
