Patrick E. Bennett, Jr., Computer Consultant ... computing support for small business

A very scary article from the NY Times on "keylogger" malware - hacker software that secretly infects your Windows computer and then sends every thing you type (including your online banking password) to the hacker.

Mr. Stewart found that each of those machines, in turn, was programmed to notice when their users visited any of 4,600 specified Web pages, including banks, brokerages and other sorts of sites.

Then Clampi starts sending a real-time stream of the user’s actions using a modified version of standard instant messaging software. The hackers log into the user’s bank account, quickly copying the one-time password if one is used. They start initiating wire transfers to accomplices (mules is the term of art) who send the funds on to the crooks. Sometimes they have even set up “mules” or fake employees who earn fat salaries by direct deposit.

One victim of Clampi was Slack Auto Parts in Gainesville, Ga., which lost $75,000 to the scam, according to a post in the Washington Post’s Security Fix blog.

This may be the point at which the cost of using Windows instead of Linux (or even Mac O/S) far outweigh the benefits.