A rootkit is a collection of tools an intruder brings along to a victim computer after gaining initial access. A rootkit generally contains network sniffers, log-cleaning scripts, and trojaned replacements of core system utilities such as ps, netstat, ifconfig, and killall. Although the intruders still need to break into a victim system before they can install their rootkits, the ease-of-use and the amount of destruction they cause make rootkits a big threat for system administrators. ...
I found this article and found it very interesting so I thought I would share it. I'm sure many of you have read stuff like this hundreds of times, but this is the first article I've read about rootkits, therefore it intrigued me:
http://linux.oreillynet.com/pub/a/li...4/rootkit.html
Enjoy