Ah, rootkits. They’ve been around for a good long while, but recently they’ve been getting more and more publicity and credibility as methods to effectively target and breach the security on everyone from individual to corporate networks, make their way into individual PCs, and gain complete control over systems and steal all manner of information. Rootkits are tools originally developed to be lightwieght and stealthy remote access applications, allowing an individual on one side of the world to control another computer with little to no intrusion to the end system.
But as with most tools like this, they’re being used in the wrong hands with the wrong intentions, and crackers and black-hat hackers around the world are using easily available rootkits to infect systems, steal information and identities, and install malware that’ll do everything from host illegal files and share them to relay spam. Now, it seems various security companies are sitting up and taking notice; a whole array of security firms are working to develop software and tools that will detect and remove rootkits from infected systems.
[ http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,120067,tk,dn031605X,00.asp ]