Zombie

Zombies are the reanimated corpses of dead persons. The phrase originates with the Voodoo religion of the Caribbean, where it is alleged, due to the historically high mortalities among living slave labourers, zombies were procured to work on plantations. In fact these zombies may actually have been living abductees; an extract of toxins from the puffer fish is believed to have been used in their preparation, rendering them tractable, speechless and impervious to sensations such as pain and fatigue.

Zombies commonly feature in a popular sub-genre of horror films, such as Night of the Living Dead. Cinematic zombies are frequently portrayed as mindless, lurching, animated cadavers animated only by an unquenchable lust for blood and human brains, and are typically only despatched by decapitation or a gunshot to the head.

Zombies are also common antagonists in fantasy role-playing games, often being reanimated by necromantic magicians.

In computer terminology, a Zombie is a computer which has been infected by malware, usually without the owner suspecting anything, and made to perform as a server for spam or other malicious content, thus isolating the original bad actor from a trace by law enforcement. A large percentage of junk email and phishing attempts are transmitted by zombie networks.