The virus du jour (Conficker worm) has come and – well – stayed! The much anticipated April 1st date of doom and gloom seems to have been a false alarm. Yet some 10 million computers remain infected by a masterfully crafted virus with unknown intentions.

We can expect more of the same.

Cybercrime is very profitable. A recent study by security firm Finjan estimates a single hacker can make as much as $10,800 a day exploiting systems, or $3.9 million a year.

With numbers like that, it’s not surprising hacking is attracting the brightest minds in the industry as well as the most sophisticated organized crime syndicates. Indeed, hacking is now considered as lucrative as drug trafficking and prostitution.

Yuval Ben-Itzhak, Finjan’s chief technology officer, said: “Cybercrime today is a very, very big business and those behind Conficker have spent a lot of money organizing, writing code and securing these machines so they will be looking for a return soon.

“This type of cybercrime activity is here to stay and will grow because there is so much money involved and it’s hard to get caught.”

Compromised computers are typically harnessed at-will by cybercriminals to send spam, collect confidential information, and to extort money from websites. In this case of extortion, an online business is forced to pay ‘protection’ or risk having the business’ site go down for hours or even days as a result of those 10 million compromised computers trying to access it at the same time. How much do you think a successful online gambling operation is willing to pay for ‘protection?’

Some interesting facts from Symantec:
• A data breach can increase customer turnover by as much as 11%
• Nearly 60% of corporate information resides on unprotected desktops and laptops
• Spam accounts for 80% of the worldwide email
• Poor system configuration is directly responsible for 65% of all system weaknesses
• Over 85% of corporate systems are not backed up

Bottom line: We should continue to embrace the internet and computing, in general, but do so with an abundance of caution. Be sure to keep your security software is updated, be vigilant and refrain from dangerous online activities, like downloading bootleg music. And by the way, Macs still remain relatively unscathed from such attacks…