Good antivirus package can help prevent stealth attacks
Ten years ago you knew you had been hacked when a large portion of your disk drive suddenly went missing. Today experts say it is not that simple, with hackers and botnet-herders employing increasingly sophisticated techniques to keep their presence on your computer a secret.
'Hackers don't want you to know they have compromised your network, and some malware programs are so sophisticated that they can crash your antivirus so that you won't be alerted to the infection,' said Gerald Hong, director of Hong Kong-based Lapcom.
So how do you know if your computer has been breached?
'There are three signs to watch out for if you suspect your computer has become a botnet zombie,' Mr Hong said. 'The first is that the computer hard disk keeps running all the time even when the machine is idle. The second is when your contacts start complaining that you keep sending them spam. And last, your machine performs slowly for no reason.'
The solution for home users was simple, Mr Hong said. 'Just install a good antivirus package with quarantine capabilities and make sure it has a self-protect function to prevent it from being shutdown in the future.'
However, if you are on a network, it becomes more serious.
Derek Manky, security researcher at Fortinet, said: 'They should treat it as a very serious matter. Network activity should be ceased. But in a large corporate environment this is not always a possibility. Infected machines should be located and quarantined until the infection has been cleaned.
'Credentials and system passwords should be reset. Any other information that may have been at risk should also be dealt with in an appropriate manner. If this risk involves data belonging to third parties or employees, the information should be immediately relayed so that they can deal with it appropriately.
'Finally, the origin of the infection should be investigated and resolved so that it does not occur again. Employees should be educated, and a proper layered security system ... should be put in place.
'Understanding the origin of these threats goes a long way to preventing future vulnerabilities.'
