Fireball Malware Infects 250 million Computers Worldwide: Check Point

After the discovery of the Judy malware last week, the Check Point threat intelligence team reported about a Chinese malware called Fireball. According to the report around 250 million computers worldwide are affected by the Fireball malware and a Chinese digital marketing agency called Rafotech is behind the adware.

According to the Check Point report the Fireball malware is spread through bundling i.e, is installed on victim machines alongside a wanted program. On the victim machine the malware acts as a browser-hijacker with the ability to run any code on victim computers – downloading any file or malware and manipulating infected users’ web-traffic to generate ad-revenue.

Analysis shows that over 250 million PCs are infected. 10.1% of them are in India and 9.6% are in Brazil. That means that India is the most affected by this fast spreading adware. Also 20% of the global corporate networks are infected. Indonesia is with highest hit rate about 60%. Reports also note that Rafotech uses bundling in high volume to spread Fireball faster.

Any user can check whether they are affected by the malware by simply opening their web browsers and checking whether they can modify the home page adress. If you are infected then you can uninstall the virus by heading over to Programs list in the Windows Control Panel or the Mac Settings, locating the suspicious app and uninstalling it. Fore more details about the malware read the report by Check Point Blog.

Source: Check Point