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Concept
Zombie (computing)
Summary
In computing, a zombie is a computer connected to the Internet that has been compromised by a hacker via a computer virus, computer worm, or trojan horse program and can be used to perform malicious tasks under the remote direction of the hacker. Zombie computers often coordinate together in a botnet controlled by the hacker, and are used for activities such as spreading e-mail spam and launching distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS attacks) against web servers. Most victims are unaware that their computers have become zombies. The concept is similar to the zombie of Haitian Voodoo folklore, which refers to a corpse resurrected by a sorcerer via magic and enslaved to the sorcerer's commands, having no free will of its own. A coordinated DDoS attack by multiple botnet machines also resembles a "zombie horde attack", as depicted in fictional zombie films.
Zombie computers have been used extensively to send e-mail spam; as of 2005, an estimated 50–80% of all spam worldwide was sent by zombie computers. This allows spammers to avoid detection and presumably reduces their bandwidth costs, since the owners of zombies pay for their own bandwidth. This spam also greatly increases the spread of Trojan horses, as Trojans are not self-replicating. They rely on the movement of e-mails or spam to grow, whereas worms can spread by other means. For similar reasons, zombies are also used to commit click fraud against sites displaying pay-per-click advertising. Others can host phishing or money mule recruiting websites.
Zombies can be used to conduct distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, a term which refers to the orchestrated flooding of target websites by large numbers of computers at once. The large number of Internet users making simultaneous requests of a website's server is intended to result in crashing and the prevention of legitimate users from accessing the site. A variant of this type of flooding is known as distributed degradation-of-service.
Official source
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