Re: So people are gullibe and will do anything for a profit?
In other news: gravity is still working.
I'm actually not surprised by the increase in infections in "secure" ( patched and Scanned/Firewalled) systems. Most PCs are set up by OEMs to patch and update automatically, with at least a decent free-version virus scanner/firewall combo, so even if a user is a total airhead, the system itself *should* more or less take care of itself.
This, however also makes the "increase" in infected systems rather irrelevant, since the executable clearly needed user interaction to the point where it needed to get specific permissions to run, so the actual state of protection of the users' machine is rather moot. The only way to protect the system against that kind of behaviour is allowing the user no system at all.
I must say though that the ...expectation.. the researchers have about any user having a clue at all about "processes running on their system" is rather laughable. The amount of processes and services that are set to start automatically, even from completely legal and logical software, is insane. Windows 7 is pretty well behaved, the mainstream AVs as well, but all the other stuff? Crud and fluff that eats memory, loads at startup and does "nothing" , and is a biatch to disable. ( some Adobe stuff needs a trip to services *and* registry to make it behave... And resets registry and services every time an update is offered ( not installed (!) ) ). And a normal user doesn't even know what "Services" are....
Then there's spywareeermm sorry "Toolbars" that every other commonly accepted as "safe" software company flogs as part of the install process, "system checkers" as part of a normal install process that run in a separate install, and a minor sheaf of other stuff that will all pop up warnings from your system and that you have to click through to ignore as part of a normal install process. All from Big Names, and universally regarded as "safe".
So the average user is not only unaware of what his/her system actually runs, but is also trained to hit the Ignore button on any warning popup his system presents to him, by the very companies that should have at least a passing interest in making sure the users' system is relatively safe and clean, if only to "enhance the Experience"...
If there's any surprise, it's the sheer arrogance and/or cluelessness of the "researchers" in this case.