Computer Security 102 - Escape from the Botnet

It used to be that malware writers’ favorite trick was to delete your C: drive. You used to know right away when your computer was infected: it didn’t work right. Those Good Old Days are gone. The modern perp never wants you to notice that he is using your computer. If you do notice and stop his activities, he can no longer make money by using your computer. He wants to use your computer for many different things, mostly tied to getting money, some of it yours.

He wants to use it to send spam to thousands of mailboxes. He is paid to send spam for many reasons. Some perps use spam to try to trick targets into revealing personal information, or to install malware, or to sell fake pills and watches.

He wants to collect your login credentials. Since many people reuse their bank login credentials on other sites, he is interested in all your login credentials.
He wants to use it to attack hundreds of websites with traffic they can’t handle. He has “customers” who pay him to attack web sites. These “customers” have many reasons to pay for this “service.” Some are competitors of the targets, some are people with political agendas, some could be governments trying to disrupt entire countries. Some even run “protection” rackets, collecting “payments” from web sites so that they won’t be attacted by these racketeers.

He can use your computer to spy on you and collect sensitive documents and information from your computer. This information can be used by terrorists, and badly acting governments and corporations.
He can use your mobile computer (your cellphone) to send expensive SMS messages or make expensive phone calls. You pay for these in your phone bill and the perp gets your money.

continue reading…