Computer viruses, Phishing, Key logger, Trojan horses and many more. One could get tired of hearing about the multiple threats a computer is subjected to nowadays.

Remember the old days, when you would catch a piece of malware through a floppy disk? It would alter or destroy some of your documents, probably format your hard disk. That was it.

Today it has become a little more complicated, since more people are doing more things with personal computers. Money is involved now, credit cards are being used in online shopping, and money attracts thieves. For many companies the Internet has become a vital part of their costumer relationships. In other words, there's simply a lot at stake: a lot to lose and a lot to gain, on both sides of the law.

Today's malware doesn't wave a flag and yells "Got You!" anymore. It stays hidden to do its job. It's no longer about the questionable reputation of basement programmers - it's about money.

How are you involved in this - other than keeping your computer and your data safe?

You should be aware of the fact, that today's malware often works in the background, so you don't realize that your computer might be infected. E.g. so called "key loggers": they wait in the background, to record whatever you type into your keyboard. It might be a PIN for your bank account or your credit card number. It sends the collected data home to be reviewed by the author of the key logger. You as a user won't see anything of this activity; no windows, no pop-ups, nothing. You may see an entry in the processes list of the task manager, if you're lucky.

Software like this tries to hide itself from you; even after the work is done (you could cancel your credit card, an undesired turn for the bad guy).

Botnets

Another important infection scenario involves a so called "botnet". You might have heard this term somewhere, but if your computer happens to be part of a botnet, you won't know. Because the respective software that runs on your machine doesn't want to bother you - it just wants to do it's job and be left alone otherwise. It even wants your computer to function properly! Read also this quite interesting article about the "availability" of botnets.

Millions of computers are infected this way without the knowledge of the owners. But what are botnets good (or bad) for? One example is the denial-of-service attack. If a sufficient number of remotely controlled computers request a single web site simultaneously it can get to the point where the server the site is hosted on, can't manage the traffic anymore and thus becomes unreachable - the web site is "down" now. Mission accomplished. Remember the aforementioned companies that rely on the internet to do business? They don't like this, not a all. As an example, the White House email and web site server has experienced a denial of service attack several times this year.

Given the right amount of criminal intent, you can hire those botnets to perform this kind of attack, or better, threaten someone to do so. The company you aim at might be willing to pay you for not doing it.

Pretty spooky scenario, huh? You might just be a part of it, without even knowing.

Conclusion

We don't want to explain the different kinds of malware here. Look it up in the Wikipedia if you're interested. But we want you to know, that it's not just about you, if your computer has been taken over by malware. Computer security is about responsibility for others, too. Even if your machine is running just fine, it could be part of something you don't want to be a part of.

If there are any questions about updates and patches that haven't been answered in this article, please feel free to contact us, so we can complement this article or add an article in the FAQ section.