How bots and zombies work, and why you should care

From Sophos Naked Security:

How bots and zombies work, and why you should care

Before you say "I don't have anything on my PC that someone wants." or "My small business is too small for a hacker to be interested in." I strongly recommend you read this article.  This article uses a spam botnet as an example but there are many other uses a cybercriminal can put your computer to use for.

Many forms of malware contain keyloggers.  These are applications that record every keystroke you make.  By placing one of these on your system an intruder can easily obtain any username/password combination for any site you access.  This includes your bank, social media and other sites.

A cybercriminal can also use your PC as part of a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) bot.  In this scenario the criminal will usually send an email to an online gambling or pornography site demanding they pay a fee or he/she will DDoS their site.  If the ransome is not paid your computer could be one of thousands sending traffic, usually incomplete web requests or ping packets, that overwhelm the site.  On your end there will be a significant decrease in your computers performance.

Yet another way a cybercriminal could use your PC is to store files on it as part of a covert file sharing, or peer to peer, network.  These files generally contain illegal or other illicit information.  This could be anything from being a storage location for malware up to and including child pornography.

Take your computers security seriously and don't lull yourself into a false sense of security.  Keep your anti-virus updated, avoid downloading software from unknown/untrusted sites and don't click links in emails.  You can browse my Link of the Day (LOTD) posts for some great solutions for protecting your PC.