'Zombie threat growing'

It's a threat not to Net users' physical well-being so much as financial. "Zombies," in the world of data security, are compromised computers – including family PCs. And they're stealth zombies, because it's really hard to tell if one's computer has been compromised (operated remotely by criminals and malicious hackers). It's also hard to tell exactly how many of the world's 650 million Net-connected computers are zombies, but "the consensus among scientists is that botnet programs are present on about 11%" of them, the New York Times reports. They get into our computers via worms and viruses downloaded from malicious Web sites or activated by clicking on email and IM attachments – which we all, including kids, can easily do without thinking. What's new about this, the Times says, "is the vastly escalating scale of the problem — and the precision with which some of the programs can scan computers for specific information, like corporate and personal data, to drain money from online bank accounts and stock brokerages." Computer security experts worry that the average computer user doesn't understand the threat enough to do something about it, and it is hard to explain. I'll try: For example, a worm gets downloaded, infects, and – with key-logger software - starts recording credit card numbers, passwords, social-security numbers, etc. by monitoring users' key strokes when they type. In a case the Times cites, the stolen info "generated 54,926 log-in credentials and 281 credit-card numbers … [and] affected 1,239 companies, including 35 stock brokerages, 86 bank accounts, 174 ecommerce accounts, and 245 email accounts." Eighty percent of all that spam we get comes from botnets (networks of infected computers). Security firms can't keep up with the problem, and Internet service providers are pretty much ignoring it, according to the Times.