Some call them zombies, some call them bots, but no matter what it is called, hackers are using the computers of innocent victims to perform crimes. This is nothing new and has been going on for years. Through breaking into computers and setting up backdoors and various other stealth tools, hackers are able to completely compromise computers so they can use then for whatever they want… usually for criminal-related activities.

And the crazy part? Well, this is becoming so huge that hackers are starting to fight off other hackers to gain exclusive control of computers.

Your home computer may be committing a crime at this very moment. It might be sending out spam. It might be buying stock as part of a pump-and-dump scheme. Or it might be helping attack the Internet itself, silently and invisibly, as you read this story. And the odds your computer is a criminal are quickly rising.

The Web, some say, has been turned into an operating system for criminals. Computer viruses that hijack PCs and turn them into electronic robots, or “bots,” have become the killer app. The operation of networks of hijacked computers is so lucrative that hackers are actually fighting electronic wars over them, a story we will explore next week in part two of this series.

New hacker techniques make these virus attacks so subtle that there is no way you would know your computer is a criminal. And there is a growing sense among security experts that hackers have gained the upper hand in what was once a neck-and-neck arms race.[more]

Tags: Hackers, Malware