karmov - 1:23 am on Oct 23, 2006 (gmt 0)

Yes, there is hard data. Google it, won't take you long to find evidence. There was one police investigation that busted a 1.5 million machine net. I figure these are likely like drug busts, for evey big bust, there are 10 other operations that are even bigger...

I have a friend who recently completed a PhD which involved identifying botnet attacks. They're out there and they are a very real threat to everything attached to the net.