Record-Setting Spam Effort Turns Computers into Zombies

[TechBear_Seattle]

Record-Setting Spam Effort Turns Computers into Zombies

Unseen, unnamed forces are barraging you with lies, and if you weaken and believe them your computer will be turned into a zombie.

No, that’s not a blurb for a bad sci-fi movie—it’s a description of what’s happening on any desktop containing an Internet-connected PC. Before the month is even done, April has set a record for virus e-mails, thanks to a virulent and successful malware called the Storm Virus, Adam Swidler, a manager at Postini Inc., a spam filter service in San Carlos, CA, told LiveScience.

A Storm Virus e-mail carries alarming news blurbs (originally concerning bad weather—hence the name) in its subject line. Clicking on the attached file causes a Trojan to download, installing botnet software that turns your PC into a zombie, placing it under someone else’s remote control.

Security software vendor Symantec Inc. recently reported detecting 63,912 zombies on an average day, and that during the last half of 2006 it detected 6,049,594 separate zombies—29 percent more than during the first half of 2006. (More than a quarter were in China, where computer security is a relatively new topic.)

The story continues at http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20070426/sc_livescience/recordsettingspameffortturnscomputersintozombies