Infections caused by the Mitglieder.GB trojan is on the rise, with the malware now affecting computers around the globe. Belgium, Poland, Colombia and Portugal are the countries most affected, with a large number of infected email messages being put into circulation worldwide. The current risk of infection is considered to be high.

"Due to the nature of this trojan, which unlike Sober cannot spread using its own means, we believe that the creators are making a huge effort to distribute it," explains Luis Corrons, director of PandaLabs.

"This month, we have seen various attacks of this type, which trust more in overflow techniques than sophisticated techniques to saturate the internet with malware. This, in some way, 'poisons' the internet, as few emails in circulation are free from malware."