Attack of the Zombie Computers Is a Growing Threat

["Fergie" <fergdawg () netzero net>]

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Lots of my friends and colleagues (and my boss, even :-) quoted in
this article by John Markhoff in tomorrow's New York Times.

[snip]

In their persistent quest to breach the Internet’s defenses, the bad guys
are honing their weapons and increasing their firepower.

With growing sophistication, they are taking advantage of programs that
secretly install themselves on thousands or even millions of personal
computers, band these computers together into an unwitting army of zombies,
and use the collective power of the dragooned network to commit Internet
crimes.

These systems, called botnets, are being blamed for the huge spike in spam
that bedeviled the Internet in recent months, as well as fraud and data
theft.

Security researchers have been concerned about botnets for some time
because they automate and amplify the effects of viruses and other
malicious programs.

[snip]

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/technology/07net.html

Enjoy.

- - ferg

p.s. Special congrats, Rick & Adam. :-)

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--
"Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson
 Engineering Architecture for the Internet
 fergdawg(at)netzero.net
 ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/


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