250 Million PCs Infected, Chinese Malware Turns Computers Into Zombies

It would seem that news about malware infecting a host of devices is becoming increasingly commonplace. Even so, the discovery of a Chinese malware called “Fireball” that may have infected over 250 million computers is still a standout affair. The rate of infection should have been enough to send a chill down the spines of tech security experts but the nature of the malware is also quite destructive.

The malware was discovered by security firm Check Point and according to its blog post, Fireball is already well on its way to burning computers all over the world. Originating in China, the malware seems to have been created by a malicious organization with the intent to hijack the browsers of its victims’ computers.

This would effectively turn the browsers into what the security firm calls “zombies,” which does not sound ominous at all. Basically, the user’s browser can be used to run codes without the permission of the owner of the device as well as download anything from the web. It can also be used by the perpetrators to generate ad revenue in the form of forced traffic.

“This operation is run by Rafotech, a large digital marketing agency based in Beijing,” the blog post reads. “Rafotech uses Fireball to manipulate the victims’ browsers and turn their default search engines and home-pages into fake search engines. This redirects the queries to either yahoo.com or Google.com. The fake search engines include tracking pixels used to collect the users’ private information. Fireball has the ability to spy on victims, perform efficient malware dropping, and execute any malicious code in the infected machines, this creates a massive security flaw in targeted machines and networks.”

Aside from simply taking control of the infected device, the malware can also be used to harvest data from users, Fortune reports. Rafotech could then sell this data to the highest bidder, which could include credit card numbers and online banking information.