Notes

Zombies: Great Fun for TV, Not for Your Computers!
It seems that people love zombies these days. We can't appear to get enough of them. We have zombie movies, Television shows, comics and novels. They are this type of hot topic that the guts for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta and the Department of Homeland Security have both published guides on how to plan a "Zombie Apocalypse"!

All in good fun! What's NOT fun would be to have a zombie computer.

As we all know, a "real" zombie shuffles along without appearing to be alert to what has happened in their mind and what is going on around them. With a zombie computer, it's the user of the computer that is unaware of what's happening.

Guess what? Your computer is actually a zombie right now!

Does your personal computer run slow even though you're not using multiple applications? Are you currently denied access to sites offering antivirus or firewall programs? Your computer might be a zombie!

A zombie is a computer controlled by way of a hacker. It could be used to execute malicious and also criminal tasks. Hackers commonly work with a Trojan horse virus to "zombify" a computer. A Trojan horse is really a malware program that pretends to be something benign to trick a user into running it.

For instance, a user may download a Trojan from an email, web forum or internet site thinking it is just a video game. The program might actually run as a video game that an individual enjoys and, unwittingly, forwards to another person.

Unfortunately, the program is not only a video game. It proceeds to engage in nefarious activities that may include controlling the computer and enlisting it right into a network of computers called a botnet.

The internet, which is now the universal standard for networking and communication, is based on published standards and open technologies. Today, vast amounts of computers are using the same technology for connecting with other computers and communicate. This is technology that is free, accessible and whose inner workings are in the public domain.

Which makes the lives of hackers much easier than if we were still utilizing a hodge-podge of proprietary and licensed technologies. Vulnerability is really a price we pay for standardization.

Hacked computers could be commanded using internet communication protocols such as for example IRC and HTTP. IRC is used by Instant Messaging and Chat applications while HTTP can be used by web servers to send you webpages.

Networks of zombie computers are accustomed to generate e-mail spam and launch a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. You have probably seen those emails. They're to email marketing what snake oil was to 19th century hucksters. They promise a cure for precisely what ails you, from male pattern baldness to erectile dysfunction. Be cautious, though. A fool and their charge card number are soon parted and the consequences can be severe. And you may still be bald and lonely!

To comprehend a DDoS attack, think about those zombie movies. There's always a scene where the survivors are hiding in a house surrounded by a horde of undead looking to get in, banging on the entranceway and trying break in through the windows. They may be able to hold on, but there is absolutely no way anyone else will get directly into help or to allow them to get out. They are locked down!

A DDoS attack floods an internet site with a horde of messages, so many that other messages can't reach the target and the target can't send messages out. It gets locked down!

Some of the most prominent internet companies, including Yahoo and EBay have been DDoS victims. The federal government of South Korea and US Government Agencies including the CIA are also one of many victims.

Zombie computers are also used for crimes with a financial motive such as for example click-fraud. For example, an online advertiser pays a co-employee a small commission every time an advertising banner is clicked on. A zombie network can be used to run scripts which make it appear that a user from each computer has clicked on the ad a number of times, generating undeserved commission.

A variant of the fraud was portrayed on the favorite TV show "Breaking Bad". Money was laundered through a web site setup to improve funds to pay for medical care for the show's main character Walter White. Mr. White is a cancer victim who was actually financing his treatments by producing and selling crystal meth. Unbeknownst to the site creator, Walt Jr, the donations were from the global network of zombie computers setup to funnel his ill-gotten gains into an otherwise legitimate charity!

Sadly, that is more fact than fiction. And no small matter. The biggest botnet discovered up to now was the Bredo Lab or Ocasia botnet with over 30 million zombie computers networked. At its peak, it was generating an estimated 3.2 billion spam emails each day.

Ok, so now you understand the problem. How will you know if your personal computer is a zombie?

Here are 7 tell-tale signs that your computer could just be a zombie:

Your computer decreases for no apparent reason. You expect your computer to run slow if you have many applications open, but if it is slow even with one app open you should look for a problem.

Your current antivirus software becomes disabled. Zombie programs might have a self-preservation instinct and may disable your existing antivirus software, hampering your ability to resolve the problem.

You're blocked from accessing internet sites where you can download antivirus software. This is bad. Not only may the zombie disable the antivirus systems you have installed nonetheless it will proactively attempt to block you from downloading new antivirus software.

Your emails are bounced back to you blocked. The experience of a zombie computer could cause it to get blacklisted by email servers. For anyone who is getting the emails returned then you may be on the blacklist.

Your computer has visited places you haven't. Assuming you have firewall software, you can check to see where outgoing messages have already been sent. If you don't recognize a lot of the sites, you might have zombie on your own hands.

Your computer is taking longer to startup and shutdown. A zombie process may consume many system resources when starting and shutting down.

Loss of hard disk space or no apparent reason. A zombie process may generate a great deal of data and save many messages. If you are suddenly short space on your own hard drive, you could have a Zombie.
If your personal computer does turn out be "zombified", so what can you do about?

In case you have a restore point you could try restoring the computer to a spot before the infection. That may or might not work. It might only cause the infection to go dormant, only to re-awake later.

It is possible to always "nuke" your machine, that is, reformat the hard drive and reload from scratch you start with the operating-system. That'll work, but "Oh the humanity!". It's frustrating, requires that you have original installations of all your required applications and if you restore backed up data files you might just re-introduce the infection unintentionally.

The best answer is to find an antivirus system that may cure the infection and stop it from happening again. Clearly, it is not the software you've been using!

The issue with most antivirus systems is they only address viruses and exploits which were identified and put into a "blacklist" of known viruses. Whenever a new villain is unleashed on the world, they'll eventually update their blacklist because of this specific issue. If you obtain the latest update you can be ok, but only before next exploit or virus is unleashed on the planet.

Every day, an estimated 50,000 new viruses are unleashed!

You see, you're always running to stay prior to the latest villain on the loose! There will always windows of chance of the villain to access you and, perhaps, turn your system into a zombie.

In my opinion, the best antivirus software and firewalls use a "whitelist" system and sandbox technology. Just how this works may be the scanner only permits software to use within your system if it's on a summary of valid programs. If it suspects that any software includes a problem, it will permit the program to run in an isolated system area called a sandbox. Predicated on its behavior in the sandbox, the AV software will determine if it is OK or ought to be deleted.

Of course, it really is even more important to be protected should you be operating a commercial site. You don't want to be spreading viruses to your customers! Besides antivirus and firewall protection be sure you utilize the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and SSL Certificates.

SSL creates a secure connection between your browser and the net server, encrypting data transferred. An SSL Certificate provides additional security for the user by authenticating the website , giving users confidence that they can provide private information safely.

The truly scary thing relating to this is that becoming a zombie computer is only among the many threats that you have to deal with for anyone who is connected to the internet.

Every internet user must have the very best antivirus and firewall protection they are able to find. Every website that exchanges personal information should have the best SSL Certificate protections available. Should you have multiple subdomains it is possible to protect all of them with a single wildcard SSL.
Website: http://b3.zcubes.com/v.aspx?mid=11788420