Indian Computers Are Prone To Cyber Crime

PCs with a web connection in Mumbai - India's financial capital - have become an easy prey for hackers to carry out their malicious activities.

Symantec Corporation in its recent Internet Security Threat Report (ISTR XI) has ranked Mumbai as the city with maximum bot-infected PC throughout India. According to the statistics, ratio of infected machines in this city was 38%, followed New Delhi with 25%, Banglore with 15%, and Chennai with 10%.

India has at least 40 command control servers, as per the researchers at Symantec. Roughly 60% of top malicious codes reported in the country contained threats to confidential information while 84% of these threats allowed remote access.

With the increase in broadband penetration in the country will also increase the rate, and level of sophistication of spam, as they become more modular and monetarily beneficial. Growing application of Internet trading will result in increased cyber frauds and data leakage, leading to a major security challenge for shareholders. Prabhat Kumar Singh - the security response director for Symantec - divulged this in news published by NewsPost on May 25, 2007.

Singh, while describing the modus operandi of spammers in attacking computers through the Internet, said that when spammers discover or create a new & unidentified flaw, they exploit it by attaching a new malware and backdoor and then sending a few spam emails to unwary users who fall prey to this tactic of the spammers.

When the victims open the attachments, the Trojan gets installed automatically. The backdoor reports the hacker that the computer has been infected and opens the system for the hacker, as per Singh.

Another malware named 'Bancos' was also found moving on the Internet during the mid 2006, as per the study. This nasty code stole the username & passwords of online customers. According to the study done by Symantec, this malware will continue to cause troubles for Internet users in India in the next few months as well.

Related article: Indian Financial Industry Facing Rising Online Fraud

» SPAMfighter News - 6/5/2007