Online crime

Article


Imagine your home computer and a half-million others being secretly commandeered by criminals who use them remotely to send spam e-mails, spread viruses, steal personal information — even crack the codes at credit card companies and banks.

Sound far-fetched? It's already happening. In the past five years, these so-called "zombie" robot networks — or "botnets" — have become the key to most serious internet crimes.

"It's not uncommon for the bad guys to have 50,000 or 100,000 or even half a million computers under their control,


The internet is one big pool. Thats the problem.


Symantec Internet Security says home users are the target of 86 per cent of internet attacks, largely because they are far less likely than corporate users to have effective security measures


Aha. Can you say "WINDOWS !!!!" ?


Any computer that attaches to the internet should always have up-to-date firewalls and anti-virus software in place, for example.

...says symantec.

Can you say "BUY OUR PRODUCT ! BUY OUR PRODUCT !"

This is the biggest security problem of all, actually. These bot nets are a major issue yes, but no one really is intrested in solving them, they're only intrested in continuing to sell you insecure , over priced operating systems , and third rate fire wall / anti virus suites that do little but take your money , foist all the responsibility onto the customer with these pop ups that read "Do you want to allow this program to run or be downloaded ?" and then when the customer is tricked and ifected anyways "It's all your fault. You said YES to that pop up. Phone a PC tech. Thank you for telling us your woes and thats 75$ US on your credit card for calling Norton/Symantec. Thank you for your business. "

And then we get "writers" who go to the very source of the problem (Windows or Norton or other security companies with a vested interest in NOT solving the problem) and asking them what they think of all of this.


The real online criminals here are Windows / Norton, and ill educated writers who can't be bothered to do their own research. They want to be spoon fed, and the cheif offenders in all of this are happy to do so.

You want REAL advice ? (In no particular order)

• Stop using the Internet Explorer. Try getfirefox.com or www.opera.com


• Stop downloading mp3's and movies from illegal sites. Limewire and it's ilk are the cheif source of many infections.
  
• Those free screen savers advertised on yahoo ? They're not so free. Full of virii. Ditto those free smilie programs and a host of other "free" cuteness.
  
• Once you get a working version of XP or other windows (WinVista doesn't have a working version yet by the way) turn OFF the windows updates. Let your fire wall and anti-virus operate without any interference from windows, thanks a bunch.
  
• for real security , get off windows. Linux Ubuntu is free, and the easiest Linux out there. Or there's always a Mac.
  
• Don't open attachments from friends unless you talked to him and he told you he was sending it. Lots of virii apear to come from your friends, but really , they have no idea such things are being sent in their name.
  
• Cleaning a computer of a virus is a waste of time. Because cleaning really means "erasing files at random" , *NOT* "remove the virus from the file and then put the newly cleaned file back". Randomly deleting files from your computer causes it do really funky things, and you're probably going to have to reformat afterwards. Skip the cleaning, back up your data , and go straight to the reformat.
  
• Get a yahoo or gmail account and use that instead. It's free, it's scanned for virii trojens and spam , and those big companies do a heck of a better job of it than your local isp. (unless you do criminal activity , in which case, yes the FBI gets to read your email... )
  
• *YOU* are responsible for running your computer. The only thing anyone else is responsible for is fleecing you for every dollar they can get from you. Understanding this will make your life amazingly simple.