Cybercrime: one in 10 computers vulnerable to attack

A new report reveals that cybercriminals are attacking millions of computers every month – and infecting approximately 10 per cent

Computer hackers have been able to infect one in 10 of the PCs they've attacked, a new survey found Photo: CLARE KENDALL

By Matt Warman, Consumer Technology Editor 11:42AM BST 22 Jul 2010

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Cybercriminals are increasingly focussing on money, a new report suggests, and improved organisation means that “toolkits” have been developed to methodically infect PCs so that illegally obtained information can be bought and sold.

In a survey by security firm AVG, 165 internet domains were found to have attacked 12 million visitors over the course of two months. More than 1.2 million computers were subsequently infected.

The research looked at criminals using the so called “Eleonore toolkit”, which aims to use malware contained on specially created websites to steal information such as credit card details, emails and national insurance numbers.

The software targets known vulnerabilites, primarily in older versions of Microsoft’s web browser. Internet Explorer 6 alone accounted for one-third of all infections. Apple Browser Safari proved the most resistant to Eleonore attacks, allowing just 2.78 per cent of machines using it to be infected. Adobe Acrobat and Sun Javascript also accounted for a significant number of infections.

Criminal servers were typically hosted in the Ukraine, where more than a quarter were found, the Russian Federation and Kazakhstan. Hackers appeared to target the Russian Federation, too: 8,906,025 attacks were recorded, and 916,430 (10.3%) were successful. The United States and Britain attracted approximately half a million attacks each, which met with a similar level of success.