A huge network of hackers is out to get your personal information and they may already be lurking around your computer.
It's almost like science fiction with 13 million infected computers working to steal personal information. They're part of a giant hacker network. One of those computers could be yours and you would never know it. That's why financial groups and software giant Microsoft want to take them out.
It's called a Botnet and here's how it works: Your computer is somehow infected with a virus that works to steal other people's information, then send it on to the bad guys, all silently, so you never know.
Swacha, a partner in the network take-down, has already seized hundreds of control computers that put victim's computers to work. The sophistication of these attacks is impressive. The viruses are smart enough to wait for you to go to a banking or credit card site, then make its move. "The guys on the other end of the transaction, a message pops up, on their screen that says that you're online," said Dennis Simmons of Swacha.
Microsoft's senior attorney for digital crimes explains why this is so lucrative for criminals."Botnets leverage the internet so people could commit all types of crime. So the crime could be anywhere from keylogging for account access, identity theft or just sending spam for counterfeit products, it really runs the gamut," said Richard Boscovich.
Boscovich says he hopes to disrupt this network one computer at a time to make doing business impossible.
So far, Microsoft and partners have already shut down control and command centers in Illinois and Pennsylvania for this Botnet, but some of them are still in operation.
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Information courtesy of NBC News.
