Attacks on PCs by botnets – the so-called zombie networks - are becoming more of a problem, with more than a million hosts already controlled by hackers.

That’s according to the the Honeynet Project, an organisation that sets up PCs to be deliberately affected, which found that “The threat posed by botnets is probably worse than originally believed”.

The research published in a White Paper, Know your enemy: Tracking botnets found that the threats can’t be under-estimated as they pose “a severe threat” to the wider community. It\'s more bad news for PC users, two months ago, the Honeynet Project found that hackers were concentrating almost exclusively on Windows machines.

The project tracked more than 100 active botnets, including one containing 50,000 compromised \"zombie\" machines.

The report pointed out that \"more then one million hosts are compromised and can be controlled by malicious attackers\" although it warned that this was a probable underestimate. The company also made an estimate as to the scope of DDoS attacks. In the tracking period, from November 2004 to January 2005, Honeynet detected a staggering 226,585 IP addresses joining at least one of the channels being monitored

The Honeynet Project believes that there is much more work needed in keeping botnets at bay. In the report, it pointed out the range of potential damage. “Our research shows that some attackers are highly skilled and organized, potentially belonging to well organized crime structures. … \"Since botnets pose such a powerful threat, we need a variety of mechanisms to counter it.\"

Ominously, the report concluded by pointing out that \"more research in this area is needed, attackers don\'t sleep. As these threats continue to adapt and change, so to must the security community.\"

FOR THE LOVE OF YOUR HIGHER POWER OF CHOICE, SOMEONE CALL THE RACCOON CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT!

If this were to happen it would eventually cause a resident evil type of scenario and you\'ll only be able to rely on your own friends.After all they are your trusted friends right?Or are they? :devil:

Ok, you guys are going WAY off topic. (Including me in this post.) It says nothing of Zombies in real life. This is all Cyber-Zombie attacks. Not real life Zombies. (See what you did Hollow? XD) </Off-Topic>

<On-Topic>

Hearing this actually makes me afraid to do anything anymore.

Come and get me bastards!!! MEH!
Kinda sucls for me, I\'ll never use apple.

Meh. You saw this coming;

Zombies are overrated.

Hah. That\'s a point to you, Zaleon.