According to CipherTrust, one hundred and fifty seven thousand (157,000) new zombie computers are found every day. A zombie machine is one where the owner is not in control any more and instead a malicious outsider has taken remote control. The reasons are many, but primarily among them is the ability to use your machine to send SPAM (so you get caught and not them.) for attacking other computers, (same reason as SPAM) or to use as a general anonomizer system to make their activities much harder for law enforcement to follow. They can also be used in conjunction with other compromised computers so that the malicious party has thousands of machines at his immediate control. He/she can then take down popular sites and possibly extort money from sites like online casino’s or betting sites.
Did I mention that if you use said compromised machine for online banking, or e-commerce, it is likely that the malicious party also has your credit card details or other information they can use to steal from you or to impersonate you?
How did all those machines become zombies? I hear you ask. Well basically they didn’t keep their systems fully patched (Windows update for Windows machines), they didn’t have up to date anti-virus software, and they didn’t have a firewall of some sort in place. In other words most of them use Windows without understanding (or possibly without caring about) the security repercussions of doing so. I wrote a page to help Windows users take control of their computers and protect themselves, all using freely available software. The site is http://tips.littlehosting.com and if you are not sure you’re protected, you need to go there and spent about 30 minutes making sure you are. (If you have Linux or use an Apple Macintosh computer, you are already an order of magnitude less susceptible, to Viruses and Spyware, Congratulations.)
