By Byron V. Acohido

Betty Carty figured she ought to be in the digital fast lane.

Last Christmas, Carty purchased a Dell desktop computer, then signed up for a Comcast high-speed Internet connection. But her new Windows XP machine crashed frequently and would only plod across the Internet.

(Editor’s note: This 2,200 word article was originally published, Sept. 8, 2004,  in print form as a USA TODAY Money section cover story, part of one of a three part series on the emergence of botnets for systemic criminal use. Botnets are today much larger, stealthier and more sophisticated. They actually pivot off cloud-based services — and they continue to be the engine that drives most forms of Internet-centric hacking.)

Dell was no help. The PC maker insisted — correctly — that Carty’s hardware worked fine.

But in June, Comcast curtailed Carty’s outbound e-mail privileges after pinpointing her PC as a major source of e-mail spam. An intruder had turned Carty’s PC into a “zombie,” spreading as many as 70,000 pieces of e-mail spam a day.

Related article: The care and feeding of botnets in 2017

The soft-spoken Carty, 54, a grandmother of three from southern New Jersey, was flabbergasted. “Someone had broken into my computer,” she says.

Since early 2003, wave after wave of infectious programs have begun to saturate the Internet, causing the number of PCs hijacked by hackers and turned into so-called zombies to soar into the millions — mostly in homes like Carty’s, at small businesses and on college campuses. And, much like zombies of voodoo legend, they mindlessly do the bidding of their masters and help commit crimes online.

Personal computers have never been more powerful — and dangerous. Just as millions of Americans are buying new PCs and signing up for ultrafast Internet connections, cybercrooks are stepping up schemes to take control of their machines — and most consumers don’t have a clue.

“We thought things were bad in 2003, but we’ve seen a sharp uptick in 2004. I’m worried things will get much worse,” says Ed Skoudis, co-founder of consulting firm Intelguardians

Carty’s PC could have been taken over in myriad ways. She could have been fooled into opening a virus-infected e-mail. She might have innocently surfed to a Web page bristling with contagious code. Or she may have done nothing at all. One of dozens of network worms, voracious, self-replicating programs that pinball around the Web searching for security holes in Windows PCs, may have found one on her new PC. …more