[ISN] China leads the world in hacked computers, McAfee study says

From: InfoSec News <alerts_at_private>
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 00:49:04 -0600 (CST)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/14/AR2010021403817.html

By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
February 15, 2010

More private computers were commandeered by hackers for malicious 
purposes in China in the last quarter of 2009 than in any other country, 
including the United States, according to a new study by an Internet 
security company.

These "zombie" computers are often grouped into "botnets," or armies of 
infected computers that can be used to send spam e-mail or attack Web 
sites, according to McAfee, a Silicon Valley security firm. The company, 
which said it collects information about Internet-based threats that 
target more than 100 million computers in 120 countries, said that in 
the last three months of 2009, about 1,095,000 computers in China and 
1,057,000 in the United States were infected.

Those numbers are in addition to 10 million or so previously infected 
computers in each country, McAfee said.

The prevalence of botnets is a sign of how vulnerable computer networks 
are to infiltration, a subject of increasing international debate as 
companies and governments seek to defend their computer systems from 
intruders.

[...]


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Received on Sun Feb 14 2010 - 22:49:04 PST

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