Hi-tech Crime via Your Home PC

Recently, BBC showed just how at risk PCs are of being taken over by hackers. Hijacked home PCs are being used by hackers to send out millions of spam e-mails. In a special broadcast last March 14, BBC demonstrated how this is done.

Hackers use slave home PCs to bombard its target website with requests for access to make it inaccessible.High-traffic websites with big revenues are a "massive target" for this. Hackers can 'disable' a website and cause it to exceed its bandwith. According to the BBC, these high-trafic websites end up paying "ransom" money to hackers so that they would stop their attacks.

We have to make necessary steps to ensure that our home PCs don't become hackers' "toys". There are no visible signs that our PC is being controlled by someone else, we really can't tell. Our PCs can be compromised by visiting an infected web page or by opening an e-mail containing a virus as an attachment. Protection systems really need to be switched on and kept updated all the time to prevent being taken over by these cyber-criminals.