Pretty much everyone knows the basics of protecting their computer from the packs of malware that prowl the internet.  Keep your virus software up to date, don’t open attachments from people you don’t know, etc etc blah blah blah.  Firewalls and other security software can zap most of the ambient junk that you computer picks up just by being online.  But some of the more sophisticated viruses and bits of bad code can still slip through and muck with your system.

A big thing for hackers now is collecting armies of zombies, which are computers that have been infected with a piece of code that lets them be controlled remotely.  Hackers use these computers to extort money from websites by threatening DOS (Denial of Service) attacks.  Basically, if the site refuses to pay them, the hackers send all their zombie computers to the website at the same time, and the concentrated traffic crashes the servers.  This is very illegal.

There are also things called keylogger attacks.  These simplistic programs are pretty much exactly what they sound like, they log all your keystrokes, remembering everything that you input into your computer.  Then they send the information, which can contain passwords, emails, financial data and more, back to the hacker.  This is also very illegal.

Sometimes these bits of malicious code are bundled up with grey market game and music downloads or files that are swapped on P2P networks.  The best way to keep from getting burned by malware is, basically, to keep doing what you should already be doing.  Keep your virus definitions up to date and scan your system regularly.  Don’t download programs from places that don’t have a valid security certificate, or download attachments from people you don’t know.  If your system starts acting funny, disconnect it from the internet and run a diagnostic.

Make sure you clean up your system a couple of times a month.  Run Disk Defragmenter and Disk Clean Up.  Minor malwares and trojans that aren’t problematic enough to cause any real damage on their own can still eat up a lot of memory if they pile up, and crash your system that way.

The average computer is attacked by malware within six seconds of going online.  So maybe investing some time and money in making sure your PC doesn’t turn into the ravenous undead isn’t such a bad idea.