Privacy, Security & Virus Information

Bot Nets Declared as being the Computer Industry's Biggest Enemy

It wasn't supposed to be this way, but cybercrime has become an enemy to the World at large, and is using one of its most devious creations to plant the seeds of havoc into computers throughout the World. Make no mistake as the influence of the internet increases and reaches uncharted levels, so does cybercrime. Talented people are selling their skills on the "dark side" of computer technology and have developed several effective methods for disrupting computer systems, through using increasing sophisticated and particularly malicious computer code to disrupt computer processing, and especially to steal data.

One of the most viscous and effective creations of cyber-criminals are known as botnets. Botnets are rogue networks of PCs that have been compromised to become part of a "zombie" network. Many computer owners surf on unawares that their machine has become infected by a piece of malicious software (malware) and has become part of a zombie network. In many cases the virus which usually comes in the form of a Trojan horse slips through a computer's defensive shield by downloading a dodgy video or music clip, especially if there is no anti -virus software present on the computer, or it is one of these "Mickey Mouse" varieties that you can download for nothing online. Computer hackers, and especially ones at the level of creating botnets, will shoot through these "free" anti-virus programs at the speed of an express train!

Once a bot has succeeded in infecting a PC, it has been programmed to make contact with the command-and-control (Conc.) server to receive instructions. It may be programmed to lie in wait and at a certain signal; become part of a coordinated attack on certain software, media networking program or whatever the hackers feel may be vulnerable to attack.

Make no mistake; the days of mischievous computer geeks playing around with code to create a virus that will relieve their boredom are long gone. Computer fraud is big business and there are those behind the scenes, who will pay big money to have a bot invade tens of thousands of machines, and allow them to run off with their ill gotten gains. These cyber criminals know how to cover their tracks very well, changing domains and cyber identities frequently. The true extent of their spread is largely unknown for that reason. However a group specializing in sharing information about botnets reported that the number of identified botnets has grown from 1500 to 3500 in the last two years, with each of those 3500 networks possibly containing several thousands of compromised PCs.

Having a computer connected to the internet is a wonderful gift, yet one that comes with a few flaws. The risk of becoming an unwilling and unaware accomplice in cyber crime is real and cannot be ignored.

 

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