04 Mar 2010

Botnet attack "just a drop in the ocean"

A recent botnet attack that infected more than 130 million computers in 190 countries was "just a drop in the ocean" of data security issues the world is now facing, it has been claimed.

Luis Corrons, technical director for Panda Security, said cybercriminals are a growing threat for company data security and recent attacks which infected millions of computers are just the start of the battle to come.

He commented: "In the internet there are no borders and criminals know that and take advantage of it. The law enforcement in different countries really have a hard time trying to take on all these bad guys."

According to a recent report by Deloitte, cyber criminals are targeting organisations and individuals with malware and anonymisation techniques that can evade current security controls.

It noted current perimeter-intrusion detection, signature-based malware and anti-virus solutions are providing little defence and are rapidly becoming obsolete - for instance, cyber criminals now use encryption technology to avoid detection.