5 Fast-Spreading Computer Viruses

Does it ever seem like everyone's out to get you? On the Internet, that is. Your every keystroke being followed, prying eyes over your shoulder when you enter in a password, fake Nigerian princes luring you with the promise of riches? You're not paranoid, you're pragmatic. 

Operation Ghost Click, the largest cybercrime ring to date, was just brought down by international law enforcement efforts. Its unraveling made clear that just seven people in Russia and Estonia for a payout of $14 million could infect 4 million computers. Victims—from home users to NASA—had their browsers hijacked so that when they clicked on what they thought were legitimate web pages or ads, they instead ended up on pages that netted the criminals cash.

Spyware, phishing scams, malware, vulnerabilities, and misleading applications can all cause not just the hassle and expense of a system crash but the compromising of your most sensitive information.

So, what can you do to make sure you're protected? Make sure that you have up-to-date antispyware and antivirus running on your system with a firewall in place. Keep on top of software updates; even an outdated version of Adobe Acrobat can leave you vulnerable. Create passwords that won't make you prone to getting pwnd.

Internet threat detector Kindsight has just released a chart that tracks the movements of the top 20 perpetrators out there. Some of them are repeat offenders. Here are five of the fastest-spreading viruses that you'll want to avoid catching.

 

Zeus

True to its Trojan roots, Zeus (aka Zbot) comes disguised in an email. It might be as innocuous-seeming as a LinkedIn request or it could purport to warn the recipient of a problem with their financial information and offer help. No matter, the link within leads to their exposing their financial information. Once a system is infected with Zeus, passwords are collected, keystrokes are logged, and legitimate forms can be compromised with the addition of extra fields designed to nab information. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been lost to Zeus and though hundreds have been arrested, it's not likely that Zeus will stop attacking. Those looking to deploy Zeus used to have to make a significant financial donation of their own to its creator, of about $5,000. But in May, Zeus went open source, thanks to a leak. 

Sality

Sality is a particularly nasty, easily spreadable virus. It wends its way into a system by executable files and then tries to download malicious files from the Internet. It can even copy itself to any removable drives, lying dormant on them until it finds its next host. Sality blocks attempts to security websites or implement security products. As with any virus, prevention is the best medicine. 

Gamevance

Gamevance peddles the Designer Imposters of games. Instead of Angry Birds, it has Chick N' Bash, instead of Bejeweled, it has Diamond Jewel. But while wearing U-You instead of Calvin Klein's CK One might just leave your skin vaguely itchy, Gamevance's products can give you a full-on virus. Once a game is downloaded, so is spyware and an application that delivers pop-ups nonstop. Like any spyware, Gamvance collects users' information and tracks their online activity. 

Hotbar

Clicking on a bad ActiveX file can result in installing Hotbar, as can visiting Hotbar.com and clicking on any of its games, videos, sound clips, or tools. In 2006 Zango was fined $3 million by the Federal Trade Commission for having "used unfair and deceptive methods to download adware and obstruct consumers from removing it." Hotbar spyware was thought to possibly be conquered when parent company Zango closed in 2009 after defaulting in over $44 million in loans. But Zango's assets—and Hotbar with them—no w belong to Pinball and are alive and well. 

FakeSysdef

FakeSysdef seems friendly enough at first, scanning systems for hardware issues and alerting users to them. But the issues are nonexistent and downloading the fake fix module it offers is not free. FakeSysdef doesn't take no for an answer either. If a user clicks "cancel" the system will restart repeatedly until the user allows the software to be downloaded. One of the most common ways of getting infected is by performing an image search and opening a malicious results page entry that installs the malware.