How clueless PC users hurt everyone
Dutch authorities have uncovered a ring that was using infected computers to carry out extortion and other nefarious activities. Three (and maybe more) young men had at least 1.5 million computers at their control. Here is an excerpt from Internet Week.
Dutch prosecutors who last month arrested a trio of young men for creating a large botnet allegedly used to extort a U.S. company, steal identities, and distribute spyware now say they bagged bigger prey: a botnet of 1.5 million machines.
According to Wim de Bruin, a spokesman for the Public Prosecution Service (Openbaar Ministerie, or OM), when investigators at GOVCERT.NL, the Netherlands’ Computer Emergency Response Team, and several Internet service providers began dismantling the botnet, they discovered it consisted of about 1.5 million compromised computers, 15 times the 100,000 PCs first thought.
How did so many computers fall under the control of these crooks? They used a Trojan horse that a properly defended computer would have blocked. When a PC user is careless or ignorant and gets infected, it isn’t just the compromised system that is involved. We all suffer. You may be abetting criminal rings and not be aware of it. Make sure your computer is protected against invasion. Anti-virus programs are not enough. A firewall is absolutely essential and a Trojan scanner should be used as well as an anti-virus program. For more about Trojan horses, go to this page.
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