For example a small botnet with only 500 bots can bring corporate web sites to there knees by using the combined bandwidth of all the computers to overwhelm corporate systems and thereby cause the web site to appear offline.One well-known technique to combat botnets is a honeypot. Honeypots help discover how attackers infiltrate systems. A Honeypot is essentially a set of resources that one intends to be compromised in order to study how the hackers break the system. Unpatched Windows 2000 or XP machines make great honeypots given the ease with which one can take over such systems. A great site to read up on this topic more is The Honeynet Project (http://project.honeynet.org)

Spyware can:
Monitor your keystrokes for reporting purposes.
Scan files located on your hard drive.
Snoop through applications on our desktop.
Install other spyware programs into your computer.
Read your cookies.
Steal credit card numbers, passwords, and other personal information.
Change the default settings on your home page web browser.
Mutate into a second generation of spyware thus making it more difficult to eradicate.
Cause your computer to run slower.

There are a couple things you can do to prevent spyware from infecting your computer system. First, invest in a reliable commercial anti-spyware program. There are several currently on the market including stand alone software packages such as Lavasoft Ad-Aware or Windows Antispyware. Other options provide the anti-spyware software as part of an anti-virus package. This type of option is offered by companies such as Sophos, Symantec, and McAfee. Anti-spyware programs can combat spyware by providing real-time protection, scanning, and removal of any found spyware software. As with most programs, update your anti virus software frequently.

As discussed, the Internet Explorer (IE) is often a contributor to the spyware problem because spyware programs like to attach themselves to its functionality. Spyware enjoys penetrating the IEs weaknesses. Because of this, many users have switched to non-IE browsers. However, if you prefer to stick with Internet Explorer, be sure to update the security patches regularly, and only download programs from reputable sources. This will help reduce your chances of a spyware infiltration.

Acronis True Image 9.0 is a robust disk-imaging utility software that copies the entire contents of your hard drive including data and operating system files, personalized settings, and more, onto another disk or disk partition. Its layout is easy to use and navigate. It also includes wizards which can walk you through both backing up and restoring your computer.Highlighted features include:

Secure Zone – allows you to save data to a special hidden partition located on your hard drive which would eliminate the need to purchase an extra hard drive.

PC Cloning – you can upgrade to a new system disk without needing to reinstall the operating system and applications, or configure user settings.
Acronis Snap Restore – lightening-speed restore of your PC from an image. You can start working in seconds while your system is still being restored.

Acronis provides a free test-drive of its product and a 30-day money back guarantee. When you are ready to purchase, you can either download for $49.99, or if you so desire, order a boxed version for $59.99. With Acronis True Image Home 9.0, you can rest easy that your family pictures, personal documents, tax returns, resumes, and other important information will not be lost forever.

In short, they work with people and companies to track, among other things, port scanning violations. Port scanning involves a person (referred to as a hacker or cracker) who attempts to break into you computer through the open ports in your system. Once an open port is located, the individual attempts to collect your personal data or install a malware program into you computer. On average, Dshield.org logs over 1.1 billion reported attempts of port scanning each month. What is even scarier is that this is just based on their program participants. You can imagine how many more incidents are occurring each month to the general population of computer users.Dshield.org also reports on survival time. Survival time refers to how long it will take before an unpatched PC is attacked or infected.

There are products called anonymous proxy servers that help protect you. The anonymous proxy server replaces your Internet address for its own. This has the effect of hiding your IP address and making it much harder for people to track you.There are many vendors who sell anonymous proxy servers. There are also free proxy servers available to you. Two such products are ShadowSurf and Guardster. Guardster offers various services for anonymous and secure access to the web, some paid as well as a free service. ShadowSurf ShadowSurf provides anonymous surfing at their site for free.

Go to it and you will find a box to enter a URL that you want no one to track.There are many others, but here are two that are frequently used.Another interesting product, given the recent news about the Google search engine filtering its findings for the Chinese government, is Anonymizer. This company, among others, recently pressed that it is developing a new anti-censorship solution that will enable Chinese citizens to safely access the entire Internet filter-free.