'Kill a Zombie' for Halloween

Here's your chance to make a difference ... tool up and kill a zombie for Halloween.

What ... what are you doing? Put down that baseball bat and chainsaw! I'm not talking the living dead kind of zombie here, I'm taking about the silicon kind that are used by cybercriminals to send spam, distribute malware, and commit identity theft. A zombie computer. What's a zombie computer? It's a computer that's is infected with malware to bring it under the control of the cybercriminals as part of a botnet. Billions of spam emails are sent daily, and 99% of these are sent using zombie computers.

Security firm Sophos have designated October 31st, to be "International Kill-A-Zombie Day".

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to find and eliminate as many zombie computers as possible. Here's how:

• Scan your computer and those of your friends (ask permission first!) with an up-to-date anti-virus program. If you don't already have an anti-virus you can always download a free trial edition from Sophos. There are a lot of free options available out there. If you use a Mac at home, then Sophos also have free anti-virus software for you.
• Keep your operating system and programs up-to-date with the latest security patches, and run a firewall.
• Spread the word on Twitter and Facebook.

Good luck! Do your bit ... but don't get bitten!

Happy Halloween everybody!