Identity Theft On UK Computers

'The Metropolitan Police Computer Crime Unit' reported on October 10, 2006 that as many as 83,000 passwords, credit card numbers, financial data and e-mail addresses were stolen from more than 2,300 computers in U.K. The 'Computer Crime Unit' traced these confidential files in a computer in the United States.

Detectives are urgently notifying victims in possible places. They think that a large number of them live outside London but all are residing in U.K. The 'Metropolitan Police's Computer Crime Unit', which is investigating the stolen data is also alerting the 'Internet Service Providers', banks and other online services about the theft.

A detective from the 'Computer Crime Unit' stated that the information was taken from the computers by a malicious code known as 'backdoor'. He also said that it was too early to affirm how the infection spread in the computers. There has been thousands of cases of computers in the world being compromised to steal data from them.

Computer crime is on a high. Recently, researchers found that home PCs could experience attacks from hackers by more than 50 times per night. The researchers from BBC said that PCs were vulnerable to target every time they connected to the Internet.

According to a Metropolitan Police representative, the 'Computer Crime Unit' was appealing everyone who has had email to get in touch with Met officers. It is a security measure that people must abide by. However, the Unit found that people were disregarding the e-mail messages because they thought the mails to be a hoax.

The Metropolitan Police was not prepared to disclose the circumstances that led to the seizure of the U.S. computer, as the investigation process was on. They would also not name the 'Internet Service Providers' or banks that were alerted.

The representative added that there was an increase in identity theft on computers by using viruses. Like always, in this case too the computer owners have no knowledge of the present hack.

The police have advised computer users to update the latest anti-virus programs and also scan their computers to avoid falling in the trap.

Related article: Identity Fraud Looming on Users of Facebook

» SPAMfighter News - 10/17/2006