Who would have thought to look in a corporate press release for some holiday humor? From Microsoft Monitor:

Beware of Zombies

I just have to give kudos to Microsoft for the crafty Zombie press release, which uses Halloween to warn of the security threat posed by Zombie computers.

Begins the press release: “What evil haunts your computer? Internet users beware: Zombies are among us.” The company urges “consumers to protect themselves from the threat of ‘zombies,’ computers that are infected with malicious code so they can be controlled remotely by other people for illegal purposes..

“Unlike the zombies of B-movie imagination, which are easily identifiable by their typically gruesome appearance and menacing groans, zombie computers are silent stalkers. People who use the Internet may never know that their computers have been compromised and turned into a conduit for sending millions of pieces of illegal spam or facilitating other illegal activity. More than half of all spam is sent through infected computers, according to industry reports.”

There’s even a cute Powerpoint presentation: “Don’t Be Tricked: Beware of Zombies.”