Cool:

“I have two machines here running in an isolated network. I infect one with the malware, and I have the other machine pretending to be the entire Internet,” he explained.

The second machine, known as a sandnet, is a custom-made tool for analyzing malware in an environment that is isolated, yet provides a virtual Internet for the malware to interact with.

“I can sit back and see all the interaction up to point where it [the infected machine] joins botnet’s control channel. Then I can take that information, go outside and replicate it. I can see what the real server is doing to get an entire picture of the operation,” Stewart said.

The scary part of this experiment:

“The lesson here is once you get infected, you are completely under the control of the botmaster. He can put whatever he wants on your machine, and there’s no way to be 100 percent sure that the machine is clean,” Stewart said in an interview with eWEEK.

What’s the solution? Wiping your hard drive clean and starting all over again with a clean installation.

Let that be a lesson — scan for malware/spyware on a regular basis. Even that is not a 100% guarantee of safety but it’s better than the alternative. Check out this earlier post on avoiding spyware/malware/viruses for directions on how to proceed.

Munir Kotadia:

Antivirus applications from Symantec, McAfee or Trend Micro — the three leading AV vendors in 2005 — are far less likely to detect new viruses and Trojans than the least popular brands.

Not because they are flawed, but because malware/spyware writers test their stuff against the market leaders.

I use Ad-Aware and Spybot. What do you use?

Scientists have estimated that the human retina can transmit data at approximately 10 million bits per second, equivalent to a standard ethernet connection.