Tag Archives: rootkit

With Halloween coming up, the fear and fascination with the walking dead is everywhere. In recent years, the Centers for Disease Control have used zombie alerts to warn of the flu. Highway departments have also zombie mania to get people to try to slow down, though that has drawn a lot of criticism. But they’re all latecomers. Back in 2007, the FBI issued a warning about zombie attacks. Nothing tongue in cheek about this one, either; it was very serious indeed. These weren’t the kind of modern zombie that wants to eat your brains; these zombies were more traditional in that they have become unwitting, helpless slaves of an evil master. Yet these zombies are not undead flesh and blood; they lust after your PC, laptop, tablet, or smartphone to turn them into zombie machines just like the rest to attack other devices. The threat is still quite real, and an infestation can not only quickly destroy your files and render your computer useless to you, but makes it a danger to the entire Internet. Hordes of zombies Zombie programs, also called “bots”, hijack computers through trickery. Infection often occurs when the user is tricked into opening an email attachment with a virus or visits a booby-trapped webpage, though they can also appear in downloaded files. Free screensavers are also a common means of infection, because a screensaver is an executable program. The virus quickly commandeers the computer, to steal … Continue reading →