Researchers have discovered a massive botnet that seems to be operated out of the Ukraine. It is claimed that as many as 1.9 million PCs are infected, nearly half out of the U.S. and that the among the zombies are machines from 77 government-owned domains (51 from the US government) and at least some machines from major banks.

The malware on the infected machines allows the attacker to read email, communicate with the botnet, inject code, visit websites and register as a background service – all without the victim’s knowledge.

According to Finjan (the discoverer of the botnet):

Windows XP. Nearly 80 percent run Internet Explorer; 15 percent, Firefox; 3 percent, Opera; and 1 percent Safari.

The size makes the new Ukrainian botnet larger than Storm was in its prime. [DarkReading via Slashdot]