How long before your PC become a "zombie"?

Stuart Isett for The New York Times

A graphic representation of computers captured into a robotic network to spread spam and snoop for financial information.


In about 30 seconds your computer could be “owned.”

According to Vint Cerf, of the 600 million computers that are connected to the internet, up to 150 million are part of botnets, and in most cases the owners of these computers have not the slightest idea what their little beige friend in the study is up to.

Microsoft investigators, who say they are tracking about 1,000 botnets at any given time, say the largest network still controls several million PCs.

Microsoft’s Malicious Software Removal Tool, to find infections of their computers. They should also protect the PCs behind a firewall and install security patches for operating systems and applications.

Botnets have evolved quickly to make detection more difficult. During the last year botnets began using a technique called fast-flux, which involved generating a rapidly changing set of Internet addresses to make the botnet more difficult to locate and disrupt.

the Microsoft team has built elaborate software tools including traps called “honeypots” that are used to detect malware and a system called the Botnet Monitoring and Analysis Tool.

In 2003 and 2004 Microsoft was deeply shaken by a succession of malicious software worm programs with names like “Blaster” and “Sasser,”

“billy gates why do you make this possible? Stop making money and fix your software!!”


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Robotic Networks