Imagine this. You're a 20-something Californian whose online activities have included registering a domain name with GoDaddy.com, changing your Yahoo e-mail password and ordering a meal from Pizza Hut. To perform these transactions, you've entered your credit card number, birth date, telephone number, address and various passwords. Problem is, all this sensitive information now resides on a server in the Ukraine--thanks to a botnet.

This information, along with data from 160,000 infected computers, was recently uncovered by the UK security firm Prevx on a Web site that has since been shut down. Read the harrowing story here.