Of course not. At least not to your knowing. But cybercriminals have a lot of computer resources, that they are stealing from normal lawful users, thus forming a so called “botnet” – and when they don’t have to pay for their own computers, it’s much cheaper for them to have a lot of computing resources. You can read a good article on botnets at bitdefender’s blog: oemhub bitdefender: Botnets
The traditional and default protection of any computer site or network is a firewall that prevents all traffic initiated from the outside, and allow for all traffic initiated from the inside. So, if a criminal succeeds in putting a piece of software on your computer, for instance when you are visiting a hacked homepage or open a mail attached with malware, there’s more or less free access to make your computer part of a botnet. Or to send your keystrokes, including passwords to a server controlled by the criminal. Or a feed from your webcam or any content you have on your computer. The list goes on.
Mainly bigger companies with a lot of it resources keep track of their outgoing communication. It is costly and time consuming. Well, at least it was until now. To give you better options for joining the fight against cybercriminals, InfoShare has developed the Syslog Examiner program, that makes evaluation of outgoing traffic much cheaper and much easier. It still does require some work on your part, but if we all do this, we’ll sure make the life more difficult for the cybercriminals.
Cybercrime attracts a lot of people: It’s easy to get going, it can give huge financial benefits and to some it almost doesn’t feel like a crime. Here’s an article on how easy it is for people with low moral to get their own botnet: webroot on novice offering botnet. The police forces of many countries do what they can, but the only army that’s big enough to fight this, is you and me and all of us.
More on InfoShare SysLog Examiner.
