It is becoming increasingly clear that at the current rate of growth in malware in circulation and under development, computer operating systems and applications will continue to be compromised at an ever increasing rate.
According to Panda Labs, Panda Security’s laboratory for detecting and analyzing malware, it has received and analyzed an average of more than 3,000 new strains of malware every day, over the course of the last year. In their view, this represents a malware epidemic. It would be difficult to argue with that assessment.
In terms of percentages, according to Panda, the number of new examples of malware appearing in 2007 increased 800% with respect to 2006 which, in turn, witnessed an increase of 172% over the previous year.
With the increase in user participation on MySpace, FaceBook, and other social networking sites, the installation of malware, based on social engineering, seems poised for a major increase in activity.
Essentially then, it’s up to individuals to keep up as best they can; which means installing as many levels of protection as possible.
Trend Micro has released a beta of RUBotted, a small program that watches for incoming bot related traffic which is worth considering adding to your security toolbox.
From TrendSecure
Trend Micro RUBotted (Beta) is a small program that runs on your computer, watching for bot related activities. RUBotted intelligently monitors your computer’s system behavior for activities that are potentially harmful to both your computer and other people’s computers.
RUBotted monitors for remote command and control (C&C) commands sent from a bot-herder to control your computer. Additionally, RUBotted watches for an array of potentially malicious bot-related activities, including mass mailing – a common activity performed by a bot-infected computer.
RUBotted co-exists with your existing AV software, providing advanced bot specific behavior monitoring. RUBotted does not rely on frequent, network intensive updates to ensure your computer’s continued protection.
Operating Systems:
Windows 2000 Professional (Latest Service Pack Installed)
Windows XP Professional or Home Edition (Latest Service Pack Installed)
Windows 2003 Server (Latest Service Pack Installed)
Windows Vista (32 Bit with Latest Service Pack Installed)
Download at: Trend Micro
For another view describing how we got to be in danger from Botnets read TechPaul’s – Modern Nightmare
Bill Mullins' Weblog - Tech Thoughts 
Major problems with RUBotted! I installed the program. The tray icon sits there with a red “X” in it. When I right-click on the Tray icon a window opens and tells me that the RUBotted service is not started. “To start the service click on the “start” button below” There is no “Start” button below. I can do nothing. There is no entry in my Program Files or System folders. There is no uninstall. I did a reinstall of RUBotted and chose “repair”. same thing—no go. There is NO WAY to ask Trend Micro about this. I searched my Registry for “RUBotted” and “Trend Micro”. Under “RUBotted” it found four entries under “Program Files”–which are not there and I deleted them. Under “Trend Micro” it found well over 4,020 entries mostly listed under TM.PASSTHRUMP–all Ethernet related. I was NOT ALLOWED to delete a single file! This is ALL Trend Micro related. Now, I have two choices. 1–reinstall windows or, 2- reinstall from a full backup. This program and lack of help from Trend Micro is horrible! I understand that the program is FREE (right now) and in Beta, but in Beta is where problems arise. INSTALL THIS PROGRAM AT YOUR OWN RISK, FOLKS! It absolutely would not work for me and has caused a reinstall of my Operating system. I have no idea if hackers or malicious Sites could use these 4,000+ Registry entry’s to gain access to my system. I do noy intend to find out.
This comment seems to be a little hystericl. All the same, I would like to see a response from Trend Micro.
I can’t quit RUBotted – when I right-click on the taskbar icon and select quit, it does nothing. I had to use the Task Manager to get rid of it. Not acceptable behaviour for ‘security’ software.
I was able to quit the program, but when I try to uninstall (using the uninstaller and using Control Panel), it crashes and will not uninstall. I am a big fan of Trend Micro, but this program is crap and I can’t get rid of it. Not to mention, when I was using it, almost every website that used flash made the program alert me to a detected bot.
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Just my $0.02.
I used Trend for years until it seemed they’d given up trying to stop virus, and also quit with the support.
I installed RUbotted, and have been using it for a long time.
The only thing I’ve found it useful for is telling me that myexcite.com has a malicious web advertiser querying my machine.
I sometime get this alert on other sites.
My take on this is big deal..
I panicked when this 1st happened, and Trend was less than helpful. So I did a housecall scan and came up clean after wasted hours..
No more housecalls for me.
I’m thinking of removing this. I don’t really need an alert on a excite.com web advertisement.
Does anyone know if this actually blocks anything ?
This program does not block anything. It is simply a notification program, and is completely useless to the advanced user, and nothing but a panic inciter for the everyday user. On top of things, every time I try to uninstall the program, it locks down all of my communications until I go back to a restore point I made right before uninstall. This means no dialup, ethernet, or wifi. The computer claims that each of them are disabled and I cannot re-enable them for nothing. I need to backup my entire list of programs and download all of the installers all over again, then I am reinstalling windows from scratch, wasting a few days reinstalling all of the updates, then wasting another day just to reinstall my programs. I agree with the first poster “USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!” This program has caused me nothing but headache and I haven’t even used it in 2 months. I’ve relied on AVG antivirus, and have not found a single virus, rootkit, spyware, etc. on my machine which is connected to the internet as close to 24 hours as possible to monitor my website and server. I would recommend strongly AGAINST this program.
The above comment described as hysterical is nothing of the sort, for a supposedly protective program it behaves like a virus in that it is very hard to get rid of once installed and it crashes or locks up frequently.
I was a trend micro pccillin user until my ISP offered mcafee instead of crappy Norton and I do not recommend RuBotted at all, it is terrible and even although it is a beta which is supposed to be close to release quality it is not!
regards
Osiris
To all you who are having trouble with Rubotted there is a free program out there that uninstalls just about anything you throw at it. It dig deep into the reg and removes all instances of a progam. Yes I was having major problems with Rubotted but
REVO-Uninstaller from the VS Reno Group took care of it. Its free, and I never leave home without it
Thanks Michael.
You’re absolutely right, Revo is a terrific application. It is one of the core applications we continuously recommend on this site.
Bill