The release of a modification of the Mocbot worm has led to an increase of 23 per cent in the total number of zombies detected this week, according to security firm CipherTrust.

An average of 265,000 zombies per day have been identified since the release of the Mocbot worm, which is exploiting the MS060-040 Windows vulnerability announced on 8 August.

Ed Rowley, technical consultant at CipherTrust, said: 'Mail volumes have once again reached a high this week, with spam making up 81 per cent of the traffic. Much of this increase can be attributed to the spam originating from the new zombies unleashed by the Mocbot worm.'

The Mocbot worm infects machines through flaws in Windows and programmes in the Microsoft Office suite. Any computer compromised by the worm will become part of a large network set up to send out junk mail.

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