Spammers and hackers today are very sophisticated when it comes to covering their tracks. Instead of sending spam or using their own computers to attack an orginization or individual they now employee Botnets.

 A Botnet is a collection of computers (that have been hacked and taken over) which a remote user can use to execute operations such as spam, DOS attacks and other types of mailicious activities.

To quote another article I recently read: “Joe St. Sauver, manager of security programs at the Internet2 networking consortium and the University of Oregon, said there are 5 million to 5.5 million botnets in active rotation at any time.”

Article: Botnets Running Rampant Neal Weinberg, Network World care of PC World

The best way to help prevent this from occuring for an end user is to keep your operating system up to date; Always have an updated virus software running (with a scheduled scan enabled weekly); Employee a good firewall.

I understand many of the computers that are part of Botnets are generally not an end user machines, but rather machines hosted in a public environment such as libraries, campuses and other public domains. Is there no IT staff available to monitor these networks?

Generally speaking the case is that the IT department is so understaffed, overworked, and under budgeted they simply don’t have the time or the money to implement the proper equipment which can detect and prevent this from occuring. That is if they have an IT department at all.

Look…We all know how to prevent most of this from occuring. I am by no means saying it will ever stop, because anything that can be secured can be hacked (it’s all a matter of time), but lets atleast try to secure our own computers.

If you would like more information on how you can secure your computer please follow this link to a previous article over best security practices I previously wrote. I hope it helps.

Last seen in 2006 another virus known as “Ransomeware” is trying to extort US $300 from users. The virus apparently encrypts your personal files.

After your files have been encrypted the virus then copies a file named read_me.txt  to the PC. This text file simply contains a ransom note which demands the user buy their software for $300 in order to decrypt the files.

The virus states that it uses a RSA-4096 algorithm with a 4,096-bit key. This is surely just a ply to extort money, but apparently the files do have some sort of encryption.

As well the virus seems to only have a limited shelf life from July 10 to July 15, but knowing the past actions of the hackers that create of these viruses it is likely we will see another variant.

Apparently Kaspersky is working on a decryption scheme to save these files. If you are ever infected by such a variant remember it is vary unlikely that paying the ransom will get the hackers to release your files.

Always keep your virus software up to date and run a frequent full system scan. Backing up your data to a secondary location can save your files as well.