According to the MessageLabs Intelligence 2008 Security Report, during 2008 botnets were responsible for 90 percent of all spam, and responsible for a rise in the proportion of email-borne malware contained in links to malicious websites. This proportion peaked at 61.1 percent in February, when an increase of malicious activity from Storm was responsible for 96 percent of these interceptions.

Before its demise, one of Storm’s last activities involved a new bout of malware that appeared in July 2008 using headlines involving celebrities meeting their death and contained links to sites that when activated resulted in the installation of Antivirus XP 2008, a rogue anti-spyware program which could be installed without the user’s involvement. The program runs a fake scan on the computer offering to remove the number of infections found for a fee.

Read more: Here