A computer virus called Conficker was unleashed this morning, with the BBC reporting that the worm could trigger poisoned machines to access personal files, send spam, clog networks or crash sites. Over 10 million machines could be infected.

Interestingly, the consensus amongst experts is that increasingly these kinds of attack are designed, not to make a big public splash and show off the intellectual prowess of the hacker, but to make serious money. Malware = big bucks today. In fact, a recent Cybercrime Intelligence Report found that a single hacker could make as much as £7,300 a day.

Pocket change it isn’t.

One security company, Finjan, claims it’s just a lucrative as drugs trafficking.

Daniel Ionescu has some good tips on how to protect yourself ahead of tomorrow. Preparation, as they say, is the best form of defense.