BBC exposes global cybercrime risk

Peter Dinham
Sunday, 15 March 2009 17:59

IT Industry - Deals

The BBC in the UK has reported that it has easily acquired its own botnet controlling thousands of home computers as part of an investigation into global cybercrime.

The UK broadcaster’s technology programme, Click, has demonstrated just how at risk PCs are of being taken over by hackers. Almost 22,000 computers made up Click's network of hijacked machines, which has now been disabled.

The BBC has now warned users that their PCs are infected, and advised them on how to make their systems more secure.
 
Commenting on the BBC investigation, Jeremy Hulse, VP Asia Pacific for security firm, Marshal8e6, says the buying of a botnet by the BBC exposed the proliferation of zombie computer networks and the ease with which they were being sold by criminal gangs.

Hulse claimed that this was evidence of the issue that businesses face on a global level and urged Australian based organisations to take heed.

“The fact that the BBC has been able to easily buy itself a botnet highlights just how prevalent they are today.  It is a global problem and is a warning that Australian businesses should definitely heed.
 
“These criminal gangs and botnet owners have three main aims - to increase the size of their botnets by infecting more computers, harvest them of sensitive and financial data, and to increase the proliferation of spam they can disseminate.”

Hulse warned that it was by no means a small problem and, he said, it was estimated that one in four PC’s worldwide are part of a botnet and, Marshall8e6’s most recent TRACE report showed that even though spam levels dropped sharply when the McColo ISP was shut down in November last year, they were now approaching the levels they were at their peak in 2008.

He said that the current situation really highlighted the threats that businesses faced today and was a timely reminder that it wasn’t going away any time soon.
 
“Whilst budgets are obviously becoming much tighter, it all suggests that security isn’t the area to be scrimping on,” cautioned Hulse.