What happens when your average computer gets infected with a Virus, "Spyware" or "Malware"? Well in the days of Adware you would see a bunch of pop-up ads and get redirected to places you didn't mean to go on the Internet. The monetization model for the bad guys was simple: make ad revenue from millions of infected PC's.

As infectious programs evolved, so did the method by which they generate money for their creators. Ransomeware is a good example (apparently you can just stick -ware on the end of about any word). Ransomeware often simulates a real virus-protection program and convinces the user that they are infected with all kinds of bad viruses. It disables a lot of your computer's functionality and asks for money to fix things. Masquerading as legitimate software, these programs are a huge source of money and often steal your payment details as well.

The latest source of Crimeware buzz, however, is botnets. Botnet infections are a massive epidemic and often go undetected for long periods of time. Some estimates report that up to a quarter of personal computers connected to the internet may be infected with some sort of botnet program. Other reports have revealed infection rates of up to 48% in certain sample groups.

Botnet is a term for a large network of hijacked or infected computers (bots). Each computer acts as a node (often referred to as a zombie), silently taking instruction from command and control and participating in large-scale attacks or criminal operations.

Coordinated international efforts to shut down botnets have been initiated and several have been successful. A botnet referred to as Waledac, which had control of almost half a million computers, was recently taken down as part of a joint effort between companies including Microsoft and several law-enforcement agencies.

The good news is that international authorities are taking these kinds of cyber-threats seriously. Analysts and researchers are using data retrieved from recent high-profile botnet take-downs to better understand the complex nature of these crimeware networks.

As an end user, it is important to have up-to-date virus protection on your computer, especially if you are running Microsoft Windows. Microsoft operating systems and web browsers have historically been the largest target for malicious software. Fortunately Microsoft is taking big steps to fight back, including giving away their Security Essentials anti-virus suite for free.

For more information read The Current State of Crimeware Threat over at ZDNet.

BBC News posted an interesting article the other day, most notably containg an interactive graphic depicting the distribution of popular internet content.

The data was generated by the Nielsen Group from the number of unique visitors in the month of January from Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the United States.

There are a lot of different methods of gathering this sort of data and each study independently turns up different sites in the top 100. For the most part, however, this gives us a good idea where the average internet user is spending his or her time online.

This is interesting in the field of web development for several reasons. The behaviour of internet users is a complex and rapidly changing thing. To stay ahead of the curve, we need to be mindful of industry trends and cater the websites we create to the content and experience users are after.

Eight Media, a dutch-based company, is offering a free web service called Soocial.com that promises to actively sync all your contacts and email addresses across several incompatible platforms.

If you have your phone numbers on your iPhone, heaps of important email addresses in Gmail or Hotmail and your work contacts in Outlook, then this may help organize your life. Soocial is compatible with dozens of mobile phones including Blackberry, Android devices, Nokia handsets as well as online services such as Windows Live, Yahoo, Gmail and more.

You can manage your contacts using their web interface and there is even an API for programmers to integrate third-party applications with your contact database.

On Tuesday, Feb 23, the US Patent Office awarded Facebook a patent for their news feed feature.

The news feed feature is nothing new to Facebook. If you are familiar with Facebook you probably recognize the image depicted in the patent application and you have probably seen similar news feeds at other social networking sites.

This patent, however, now grants Facebook the right to pursue competitors who are using similar feeds on their sites. It is a big step for the people over at Facebook who are trying to lock down thier lead position as the de facto standard in social networking.

With over 350 million users and one of the top ad-revenue websites on the internet, Facebook has a huge lead in the industry.

Many other Fortune 500 companies, including Google and Microsoft, have long been trying to launch social platforms as successful as Facebook's. Most recently Google's Buzz has made some headlines, but it's a long way up to get the kind of loyal following Facebook now has; even if you're the single largest entity on the web.