A zombie machine is a computer connected to the Internet that
has been successfully attacked by a computer virus, worm, or
Trojan horse. A hacker will compromise thousands of such
machines to create a “Zombie Army” or a “BotNet.” With this
network he can then launch spam attacks, attack Web sites,
conduct phishing attacks, spread computer viruses, launch DoS
attacks, download pornography, or steal personal information. By
using zombie machines, spammers can hide the source of spam and
hackers can hide the source of malicious content. Using zombie
machines also provides hackers with extra bandwidth at the
expense of the owner of the machine. Most owners of zombie
machines are unaware that their machine is being used to launch
such attacks. It is difficult to check whether your PC is a
zombie, but some symptoms are a suddenly slow broadband
connection, an unresponsive mouse or keyboard, excessive hard
drive activity, or bounce notifications from people you’ve never
tried to contact. Delete suspicious emails wit