Texas Passes Anti-Botnet Bill

  • Jul 06, 2009

On June 19, Gov.Rick Perry of Texas signed SB 28 into law, amending Texas’ Consumer Protection Against Spyware Act to include violations against the creation or use of computer “zombies” and “botnets.” A zombie is a computer that has been compromised so that it can be controlled by another person or program without the knowledge of the computer’s owner. A botnet is a collection of zombies.

Computer hackers utilize zombies and botnets in order to leverage other people’s computer resources to perform illegal operations, such as collecting credit card information, social security numbers and intellectual property. In addition, they use these botnets to hack into even more computers by using those zombies to perform a multitude of attacks from a variety of different sources, thereby increasing their chances of breaking through a network’s security infrastructure.

“As more and more states refine their information security legislation, we’re seeing an increased demand for the appropriate tools to identify these criminal acts, remediate the affected computers and forensically gather evidence to prosecute,” said Tim Leehealey, CEO of AccessData Corp.

Using such technology, organizations can achieve a complete 360-degree forensic view of their data from a single vendor. With powerful analytic capabilities and visibility into data both on individual computers and travelling across the network, investigators are now in a position to quickly track down the most powerful and insidious incidents perpetrated by skilled hackers. In addition, law enforcement agencies are able to use these technologies on a case by case basis as surveillance tools to investigate alleged crimes, forensically collect evidence and successfully prosecute.

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