The case of the rent-a-zombies

Vast networks of home computers are being rented out without their owners' knowledge to spammers, fraudsters and digital saboteurs, security experts said on Wednesday.

The terminals have been infected by a computer virus, turning them into "zombies"--slaves to the commands of a malicious and unseen controller. Connect them all up, and the result is a powerful network of zombie PCs that security experts call a "botnet."

The programming crooks--often teenage bedroom hackers--are hiring out these networks to anyone who wants to commit Internet mischief.

"Small groups of young people creating a resource out of a 10,000- to 30,000-strong computer network are renting them out to anybody who has the money," a source in Scotland Yard's computer crime unit told Reuters.

There may be millions of such PCs around the world doing the bidding of crime gangs, experts say, and they can be rented for as little as $100 per hour.

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