Rootkits Cause 7 Percent of All Infections

Microsoft has warned that low-level rootkits make up approximately 7 percent of all infections.

"Alureon, Cutwail and Rustock were the most prevalent rootkits of 2009, though that list changed somewhat when the company factored in threats that had files detected as being actively hidden on disk from Windows," writes eWeek's Brian Prince. "The top three on that list are: Rustock, Bagle and Srizbi."

"The most common technique for a rootkit to get active and start hiding on a computer is to modify the Windows OS kernel," Prince writes.

Click here to read the eWeek story.