The White House announced last week the launch of an attack against botnets.
If you’re not familiar with the term, botnets refer to a network of infected computers with the intent of causing harm on the worldwide web. This could manifest itself through email spam, flood traffic, and viruses. Botnets are also referred to as “zombie armies,” which may sound like something straight from The Walking Dead, but is really a destructive online force with malicious intent.
The initiative was developed Industry Botnet Group (IBG), a coalition of the Obama administration, Homeland Security and several private corporations. The plan to combat botnets is centered on 4 points: voluntary principles, data-sharing pilot program, “Keep a Clean Machine” campaign, and private sector information sharing. Considering that about 5 million computer systems were affected by malware during the first quarter of 2012, waging a cybersecurity war against botnets is a serious concern for individuals and businesses everywhere.
An estimated 17% of PCs worldwide are unprotected against viruses and lack any virus protection, according to a study done by VentureBeat. Education on the importance of virus protection is a top priority of the IBG through the data-sharing programs soon-to-be implemented as part of the initiative.
Many companies have strategies in place to protect their data, website, and hardware from being infected. These will hopefully continue to increase and expand as the plans of the IBG are executed. For more information on the initiative, check out this article on PCMag.com.