The Zombie NetworkThe Zombie NetworkAccording to research by Trend Micro, around 100 million computers worldwide are secretly under the control of somebody else, and once they are controlled, compromised machines stay compromised Around 3 out of every 4 of these secretly controlled computers are in homes, while 1 in 4 are in businesses.
The computers that are being controlled are called BOTs, which is short for Robots.
Botnets (bot networks) exist on all operating systems, including Mac OS, Microsoft Windows, Solaris, and Linux.
The owners of these computers do not usually know that their computer is a bot. The computers function normally until they are put to work. When they are being used for tasks such as sending spam or launching denial of service attacks, all that is noticed is that the computer has really slowed down.
Criminals who take control of 1,000 bots are referred to as "Bot Herders."
When you put them all together, it's scary. The zombie network sends out millions of spam emails every day and are also used for other purposes, such as denial of service attacks. Did you ever wonder where all those male enhancement ads were coming from?
Some bot herders are members of organized crime in countries such as Russia and who knows where else. Some are script kiddies (people who know how to buy programs to control computers but don't know how to write programs).
Botnets Could Wipe Out Data on Infected PC's
Here's an article about the Net of the Living Dead
Anderson Cooper's AC360 website was Attacked by the Zombie Network
RUBOTTED is a free bot hunting program from Trend Micro for Microsoft Windows versions. (Note: it does not work for Windows 95, 98, or ME.)
Bot Hunter is a free bot hunting program for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, Unix (Note: This program is only for advanced users.)
There is no way to tell if your machine is being controlled by someone else other than to run a program to check and see.
This is a grassroots effort to eradicate the Zombie Network, one computer at a time.
Please send this link to all your friends and family.