You’ll never know if your PC has been zombified unless you check. IT Observer gives you a few clues, but I will make it even simpler.

Install a free copy of the ZoneAlarm firewall (and turn off the Windows firewall for a bit as well). Keep ZoneAlarm access messages on, and wait. If you start seeing all kinds of popups coming from your taskbar, with no applications active, that is likely the zombie talking. Those popups signify your computer trying to access the internet every which way from Sunday, with spamming and further infection attempts high on the priority list.

If you are an everyday joe, you can pick up some anti-virus tools to clean things up. If you are a Microsoft executive, you just reformat your hard drive and start over.

Spyware, adware, and malware sneak onto your Windows computer and pump some faraway server full of information about what you are doing online. These programs bury themselves in your registries, and now Zone Labs thinks it’s cracked the problem. The next release of the software is supposed to include kernel level firewalling which monitors any weird program, file and OS behavior and disable those programs that are the cause. The software will monitors registry keys and start up processes and supposedly will protect against malware embedded in downloads as well.

With parent Check Point rocking and rolling in the midst of so many internet security issues, it would not surprise me if they are right on target with this next ZoneAlarm release.

ZoneAlarm Security Suite’s latest update caused a few problems with some users. According to this report, the change caused the anti-spam filter to turn on by default. Some temporarily missed mail was the only issue, and the above article points out the easy fix, which entails opening ZoneAlarm’s control panel and turning the junk e-mail filter option on, then restarting Outlook, turning the ZA filter off, and restarting Outlook again.