Botnets on the rise in Asia, Symantec says

Iria · Sep 22, 2005, 08:43 PM

More computers in the Asia-Pacific region are being hijacked and used remotely by hackers to send viruses, according to a recent study by security vendor Symantec.

The number of such "bot infected" systems in China alone grew more than 140 percent in the first six months of 2005, compared with the same period last year, Adrian Tham, Symantec's systems engineer manager for Southeast Asia, said in an interview with ZDNet Asia.

But despite the increasing number of bot-infected computers in Asia, they made up less than 20 percent of the total number of compromised systems worldwide, he said.

Edward Lam, Symantec's general manager for Singapore, noted that there has been an increase in "botnets" across the globe. According to the company's eighth biannual Internet Security Threat Report, the number of "bots" during the first six months of this year increased to 10,352 a day, from fewer than 5,000 during the same period in 2004. The data was derived from readings from more than 24,000 sensors located worldwide.

Botnets are groups of compromised PCs, often numbering in the thousands per network, that are rented out to relay spam, to launch denial-of-service attacks, or to perform other malicious acts.
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Sep 22, 2005, 08:43 PM	#1
Iria DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Apr 2004 Posts: 7,275 Rep Power: 89	Botnets on the rise in Asia, Symantec says More computers in the Asia-Pacific region are being hijacked and used remotely by hackers to send viruses, according to a recent study by security vendor Symantec. The number of such "bot infected" systems in China alone grew more than 140 percent in the first six months of 2005, compared with the same period last year, Adrian Tham, Symantec's systems engineer manager for Southeast Asia, said in an interview with ZDNet Asia. But despite the increasing number of bot-infected computers in Asia, they made up less than 20 percent of the total number of compromised systems worldwide, he said. Edward Lam, Symantec's general manager for Singapore, noted that there has been an increase in "botnets" across the globe. According to the company's eighth biannual Internet Security Threat Report, the number of "bots" during the first six months of this year increased to 10,352 a day, from fewer than 5,000 during the same period in 2004. The data was derived from readings from more than 24,000 sensors located worldwide. Botnets are groups of compromised PCs, often numbering in the thousands per network, that are rented out to relay spam, to launch denial-of-service attacks, or to perform other malicious acts. __________ Read More / Source: News.com