You may have heard the term Zombie computer batted around the Internet lately but what does it mean? Some of us may recall the old horror movies in which a mad scientist or voodoo witch doctor could control the actions of people and usually had these people do some evil tidings. In the technology world this term is used to describe a computer system that has been taken over by a hacker to also do something the hacker wishes and that the Zombie computer owner is unaware of.

As an example. A hacker takes over your system and than uses your system to send out spam or to attack websites. By doing this the hacker conceals their true identity making you looking like the bad guy. You the user may not be aware of what is happening behind the scenes and may only notice a slow down of the computer system itself. What also can happen is that your ISP could terminate your account if they suspect your are terrorizing the rest of us that use the Internet.

So how do you become a Zombie? The hacker may exploit your machine through email or a rogue web site to plant a small software program onto your computer. Each time you turn on your computer system the zombie becomes active without your knowledge and can connect to the Internet with any user intervention. Spam can then be sent from your computer out to victims which makes it hard to track back to the original sender. A set of Zombie computers can also be used to setup an attack for one or more specific websites which is known as a DDos attack or Distributed Denial Of Service.

So what can you do? Installing an anti-virus program is a good start such as AVG or Avast, both of which have free versions available. Using free anti-spyware programs such as Lavasofts Ad-Aware or Spybot Search and Destroy are also helpful. Plus having a strong firewall like a router or software firewall is also highly recommended.

Unfortunately if your system is already infected and if you can’t get the infection removed, you MAY have to format your hard disk and reinstall your OS. This of course is a last resort.

Comments welcome.

Tags: zombie, computers, virus, spyware, attack