Internet has become a play ground for hackers & crackers. These days they keep on flying around as they have gathered themselves into organized groups who work like a team.
These hackers remain busy in inventing new methods to damage/hack corporate entities and internet users. They are getting smarter with each passing day and I am afraid to narrate this that they are doing very smart things now.
Every day anti virus vendors face around 30,000 new Viruses, Worms, Trojans, etc and all their employees remain busy in identifying and creating anti-virus signatures into their database to get ready with updates. You may have seen your Anti-Virus application updating it every other day, if not daily. This means, there is no permanent solution to these viruses, Trojans, and other hacking codes that gets installed on your PC automatically.
Just think that about an email that you received from your Company or your bank and it says “Sir we have been reported hack attempt please update your personal information” or “We are upgrading our server or Database please click this link and move forward”. Many of innocent internet users like you click that link and here you go. You have been selected as bot (this is what they call hacked system) and you will be following unauthorized instructions on command of a hacker.
Most important thing to tell you guys is that by simply opening an HTML page, or at time just clicking a link, or opening a mail can risk you hacked attacks – this can be achieved with two approaches
- phpbot (same as ircd bot but this is work with HTTP so no more firewall blocking)
- exploit (Peace of code which is used to get advantage of poorly written program)
- Pack (more then one exploit for more effective result).
These phpbots, exploits, and Packs are sent via Emails, like when you get email and opens, it may contain piece of code to take advantage of your system. Additionally this email can have virus to take full authorized access your computer to collect Credit Card information, bank login, every user password you enter from that PC, and this virus can be capable of sending all this information back to hacker, using your PC.
They have more bad options to harm internet users, such as spreaders – these are viruses that spread it self not only by emails, but with USBs, MSN messenger, YAHOO messenger, P2P NETWORKs, Outlook email list etc.
This was just an introductory post to overview possible dangers that we face every day. I have tried to not to go into technical details, however, in future, I will discuss each of them with further details and way to protect yourself from such issues.
Great info.Thanks alot.It’s always good to learn about bots and hackers.Made me think.
learning is good but think about this a single phpbot cost 4kUSD + exploit pack can goes to 10k USD + you need spreaders, hosting, SMTP and POP accounts so for learning purpose i must say this is very costly area to get interest. The more you get in the more you learn.
so what we do to protect our pc’s from hackers or viruses?
taaanls