Computer printers in India printed out gibberish characters following a virus attack today. While the details of companies affected by the virus are not known yet, sectors such as BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance), IT/BPO, manufacturing and healthcare were hit.

This was a global attack and the virus, called ‘Milicenso’, was a strain of malware detected in 2010 and was programmed in such a way that printers connected to PCs automatically printed (till the paper ran out) without being given a print command. The Milicenso trojan enters through the backdoor when you are surfing the Net and delivers other malware.

This mainly affected computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system and can spread to other systems through a local area network or USB drives, according to security experts.

This resulted in reams of paper being wasted in large companies across IT, BPO, healthcare and some manufacturing companies, according to security firms.

“Our telemetry data has shown the worst-hit regions were the US and India, followed by regions in Europe and South America,” security firm Symantec said in a blog.

Milicenso’s extent of infection in India comes close on the heels of Symantec research that found a 187 per cent increase in phishing attacks on Indian brands in May, with 25 per cent using a .in domain.

While the extent of damage is yet to be determined, Mr Shantanu Ghosh, VP and MD, India Product Operations, Symantec said, “This is a clear indication of attackers’ growing focus on exploiting emerging Internet users in India.”

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