Computer scientists in Menlo Park are releasing a free diagnostic program today to help network administrators find PCs infected with an insidious new type of virus that has already tainted millions of computers and used them to generate billions of spam e-mails. Since this malicious program, variously called Peacomm or the Storm Worm, appeared in January, it has infected upward of a million PCs, each capable of sending out about 28,000 spam emails a day, according to Phil Porras and Vinod Yegneswaran, computer scientists at SRI International in Menlo Park, the nonprofit think tank that is releasing the newest version of its BotHunter tool.
A botnet is the nickname given to illicit computer networks created by malicious hackers who write a type of program called malware. Once the malware gets onto a PC, it hides and creates a sort of electronic alter ego that surfs or otherwise connects to the Internet - without the knowledge or involvement of the PC’s human owner. Techies take on spam zombies / Free program can rescue computers
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