How much information can be collected by a single piece of malware?

According to a recent GCN.com article, one botnet alone harvested the usernames and passwords of:

• 8,485 bank accounts
• 3,233 credit card accounts
• 151,000 e-mail accounts
• 58,391 social networking site accounts
• 4,237 online retailer accounts
• 416 stock trading accounts
• 869 payment processor accounts
• 413 mortgage accounts
• 422 finance company accounts

That's a wealth of information - nearly 500 gigabytes to be exact - and it represents only six months of operations. For more information on this specific botnet, take a look at the full article on the malware responsible for it, the Coreflood Trojan.

Be careful out there as you surf the Web!