is a trojan and bootkit created to steal data by intercepting a system's network traffic and searching for banking usernames and passwords, credit card data, PayPal information, social security numbers, and other sensitive user data.[1] Following a series of customer complaints, Microsoft determined that Alureon caused a wave of BSoDs on some 32-bit Microsoft Windows systems. The update MS10-015 triggered these crashes by breaking assumptions made by the malware author(s).[2][3]
According to research by Microsoft, Alureon was the second most active botnet in the second quarter of 2010.[4]