http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/25/1085442111470.html Gold Coast May 25, 2004 Malicious attackers are getting faster and harder to keep out of corporate and government systems, a major conference on computer crime was told yesterday. The Computer Crime and Security Survey, released at the AusCERT 2004 Asia Pacific IT security conference on the Gold Coast, also showed that efforts to date had failed to reduce the risk of break-ins, with harmful attacks on computer systems in Australia increasing over the past year. The anonymous survey of more than 200 businesses and government agencies was compiled with assistance of state police forces, Federal Police, the Australian High Tech Crime Centre and the national computer emergency response team, AusCERT. AusCERT general manager Graham Ingram said despite businesses spending more money fighting computer crime over the past year, only five per cent believed they were managing all computer security issues reasonably well. "Corporate Australia is having problems dealing with these issues," said Ingram. "It's telling you how difficult this issue is. "The message to the companies that are running these systems is to keep going. You can't stop. You have to continue. This is a war you can't afford not to fight." The most common and costliest attack on computer systems over the past year was from malicious viruses, worms or trojans with the average loss for all types of electronic computer attacks up 20 per cent to $116,212. Mr Ingram said the survey showed that hackers were able to exploit vulnerabilities faster than ever before and were quicker to react to security fixes or patches designed to keep them out. "You are in this race to get this fixed. That window used to be weeks or months, it's now down to hours and days," he said. "It's an arms race." Australian High Tech Crime Centre director Alastair MacGibbon warned hackers were widening their targets from online banks to home users in an attempt to gather passwords and other sensitive information. "We need to reach millions of end users to have anti-virus software and firewalls on their home computers," he said. The High Tech Crime Centre has noted that computer criminals were combining the skills of spammers, malicious code writers and criminal fraudsters to launch attacks. In one case a home computer in Perth was identified as being involved in the theft of money from seven bank customers. An investigation found that criminals from overseas had used a virus to gain control of the computer and carry out the thefts. The AusCERT conference ends on Thursday. _________________________________________ ISN mailing list Sponsored by: OSVDB.org
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