In The Night of the Living Dead, zombies sucked brain matter in a frenzied hunger. In the computer world, a Trojan can be used to turn your PC into its own computing matter - turning it into a zombie machine. Once under the control of such an illicit program, the Trojan can be accessed by attackers intent on any number of ominous deeds.

Windows Basics is an easy-to-follow two-part course designed to provide you with a basic knowledge of Windows. The first lesson will help you understand what you need to know about files, extensions, and their associated programs. The second and final lesson will provide an overview of the Windows System Registry, truly the central nervous system for Windows and the programs that run under it.

Antivirus vendors generally assign virus names consisting of a prefix, the name, and a suffix. Not all vendors follow this convention, however, and even those who do may sometimes use different designators. When attempting to find information about a particular virus, it can be helpful to understand how the names are formed.

Antivirus software will account for more than 50 percent of the total security software revenue market in 2007, according to the calculations by analyst Gartner.

Security firms have split over the merits of a hacking contest aimed against anti-virus packages planned for August's Defcon conference.

Shrinking patch windows hit by automated attacks

Top tier anti-virus vendors including McAfee, Trend Micro, and Sophos all failed to secure Windows Vista SP1 in recent independent tests.

An unpatched bug in RealPlayer leaves the media player open to drive-by-download attacks, which hackers use to trick prospective marks into visiting maliciously constructed websites.