According to NetWitness, a computer network security firm, more than 2,500 corporations worldwide may have been infected.

This malicious program, or botnet, can over take the operating systems of both residential and corporate computing systems through the Internet. Botnets have been used by cyber criminals for a range of illegal  activities, such as sending e-mail spam and stealing digital documents or passwords from infected computers. Sometimes they even install keystroke loggers to capture personal information.

The current infection is modest compared to some of the largest known botnets. Botnet attacks are not unusual as Shadowserver, an organization that tracks botnet activity, is currently monitoring 5,900 separate botnets.

The purpose of the infection appears to be to gather login credentials to online financial systems, social networking sites and e-mail systems, and then to transmit that information to the system’s controllers.

It has been determined that the botnet may have compromised both commercial and government systems, including 68,000 corporate login credentials. It has been noted to have gained access to e-mail systems, online banking accounts, Facebook, Yahoo, Hotmail and other social network credentials, including more than 2,000 digital security certificates and a major cache of personal identity information.