Zombie Alert

Kevan Davis put together a lighthearted Zombie Infection Simulation, depicting what occurs in a city attacked by zombies. According to Kevan, "If a zombie finds a human directly in front of it, it infects them; the human immediately joins the ranks of the undead." This serves as a good analogy for one of today's most pressing computer threats, the botnet.

Comprised of zombied PC's secretly under the control of attackers, these botnets are used to infect others, churn out spam, host phishing sites, and do other nasty things to the rest of us. Meantime, every keystroke entered on the zombie PC could be logged and sent to the attackers - potentially revealing login credentials, credit card details, and other sensitive information.

While a zombie PC should be of grave (pun intended) concern to us all, the enterprise - particularly banking, medical, and government - has most at risk. To help mitigate this risk, antivirus vendor Sophos is offering a new ZombieAlert service that leverages its extensive network of spam traps to help identify infected enterprises. Subscribers to the service receive:

• detailed message samples and IP address information
• blacklisted IP addresses to help with de-listing
• summary reports of hacking and spammer activity
• 24/7 phone, email and online support

For more information, check out the Sophos ZombieAlert Service details on the Sophos website. And check out Is Your PC a Zombie? to find out more about botnets and how to make sure your PC hasn't joined the ranks of the undead.