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Identity Theft And Computer Crimeware: Bots

by Randy, Ran

The term "bot" is forrobot. Not the kind of robot you have seen in movies and televisionshows (does anyone remember 'Lost In Space'?) or the one at the car assemblyplant. Bots are now one of the most complex types of crimeware onthe Internet and therefore a significant tool for identity theft. Botsare a lot like worms and Trojans, except that they can perform a widevariety of automated tasks on behalf of their master who is usuallylocated far, far away.

Bots can perform nasty taskslike sending spam that can blast a Web site right off the internet when thespam is part of a coordinated "denial of service" attack. A botinfected computer does the work for its master and that machine is known as a"zombie". Bots can enter your computer in severalways. They are able to search the internet for vulnerable and un-protected (Nawaz,please link to Symantec) computers andinject the infection. After infecting the machine they immediately reportback to their master.

The bots objective now is to stayhidden until their master awakens them and assigns a task. Bots are sosilent that the victim does not know of their existence until the InternetService Provider notifies you that your computer has been spamming otherInternet users. There are times when the bot will actually clean up aninfected computer so that it will not get bumped off the victimsmachine by another identity thieves bot. Bots can also infect bybeing downloaded by a Trojan, installed by a malicious Web site or emaileddirectly to you from an existing infected computer.

Bots never work alone because they are part of anetwork of infected computers called a "botnet". Botnets arecreated by identity thieves/attackers who repeatedly infect victim's computersusing one or several of the techniques already mentioned. Eachzombie machine is controlled by a master computer called the command andcontrol server. The cybercriminals/identity thieves manage their botnetsand instruct their army of zombie computers from their command and controlcentre. Typically, a botnet is composed of a large number of victimizedmachines that stretch across the entire planet, from China to the U.S. Some botnets have a few hundred or few thousand computers; others have tens andeven hundreds of thousands of zombies at their command.

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Randy has sinced written about articles on various topics from phones, Broadband and Acne. Mr. Randy is the owner of Integrity Upfront, the aim of Intigrity Upfront is to educate the people of North America about the identity theft and its protection. While the LifeLock is the industry leader in the rapidly growing field of Identity Theft Prote. Randy's top article generates over 12100 views. Bookmark Randy to your Favourites.