Zeus Trojan infects 74,000 PCs in global botnet

More than 74,000 PCs at nearly 2,500 organizations around the world were compromised over the past year-and-a-half, in a botnet infestation designed to steal login credentials to bank sites, social networks and email systems, a security firm said on Wednesday.
The systems were infected with the Zeus Trojan, and the botnet was dubbed 'Kneber' after a username that linked the infected PCs on corporate and government systems, according to NetWitness.
See also: Zeus crimeware using Amazon's EC2 as command and control server
The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that Merck, Cardinal Health, Paramount Pictures and Juniper Networks were among the targets in the attack. NetWitness speculated that criminals in Eastern Europe using a command-and-control server in Germany sent attachments containing the malware in emails or links to the malware on websites that employees within the companies clicked on.
For more on this story, read Zeus Trojan found on 74,000 PCs in global botnet on CNET News.