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Date Posted: 21:31:32 09/26/04 Sun
Author: Bull
Subject: Attack of the 'Zombie' PCs

Attack of the 'Zombie' PCs

By Byron Acohido and Jon Swartz
Usa Today

The Internet empowers millions of computer users to exchange e-mail, browse Web sites and share files. But intruders have become proficient at turning Internet-connected Windows PCs into "zombies" that can send spam or steal personal information such as credit card numbers. Take steps to protect your computer.
Last Christmas, Betty Carty purchased a Dell desktop computer, then signed up for a Comcast high-speed Internet connection. But her new Windows XP machine crashed frequently and would only plod across the Internet.

Dell insisted — correctly — that Carty's hardware worked fine.

But in June, Comcast curtailed Carty's outbound e-mail privileges after pinpointing her PC as a major source of spam. An intruder had turned Carty's PC into a "zombie," spreading as many as 70,000 pieces of spam a day.

Carty, 54, a grandmother of three from New Jersey, was flabbergasted. "Someone had broken into my computer," she says.

Since early 2003, waves of infectious programs have begun to saturate the Internet, causing the number of PCs hijacked to soar into the millions. These machines mindlessly do the bidding of their masters and help commit crimes online.

Industry experts say top-tier code writers now create malicious programs mainly to amass networks of zombie PCs. They then sell access to zombie networks to spammers, blackmailers and identity thieves.

Broadcasting spam for Viagra or quickie loans is actually one of a compromised computer's more benign tasks. Bigger spoils lie in "phishing" scams, in which e-mail directs consumers to bogus Web pages to trick them into surrendering personal information.

And there are many ways for malicious code to slip past firewalls and anti-virus programs. E-mail viruses rely on tricking the victim into opening an infectious attachment. Another widely used tool is direct planting of contagions, known as come-and-get-it viruses, that trick the computer user into giving up personal information used to activate other invasive programs. Finally, scores of programs, called worms and bots, continually scour the Internet for PCs with security holes.

Until recently, little has been done to stop such attacks. The Justice Department's Operation Web Snare netted 160 arrests in August that could lead to more busts, offering encouraging news to cybersecurity experts. Still, detractors point out there are few federal cybersecurity laws with stiff penalties.

"It's easier trying to catch Osama bin Laden," says Steve Jillings, CEO of e-mail security firm FrontBridge Technologies.

And most consumers are slow to grasp that an intruder has usurped their PC. Yet the one thing that could make the difference is consumer outrage.

"Consumers should demand what they do of other utilities," says Kip McClanahan, CEO of security firm Tipping Point. "When I pay my water bill, I expect my water to be drinkable. Today, when you pay your Internet bill, the data you get is not consumable."

Zombie victim Carty took matters into her own hands: She did research on how to cleanup her PC and diligently updates her security programs. Her PC now runs clean. "I had no clue at Christmas that I would become a security expert," she says.

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