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Cyber criminals attack China, US
By George Bao |
March 8, 2010, Monday
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THE United States and China are two major countries with malicious computer activity, according to Vincent Weafer, vice president of Symantec Security Response, the world's largest maker of personal computer security software.
He told Xinhua in an interview that cyber crime represents today's most prolific threat and said cyber criminals are more determined than ever to steal confidential information.
Attacks continue their shift away from noisy, splashy, large-scale attacks to highly targeted silent attacks motivated by financial gain. They can be commercial entities breaking into competitors' records, or international crime rings stealing valuable data like credit card numbers and e-mail passwords.
"Cyber attacks are increasingly sophisticated, better organized and specifically designed to silently steal data for profit or advantage. Fraud, intelligence gathering and gaining access to vulnerable systems are now the clear motivation behind today's attacks," Weafer said.
"In 2009, 90 percent of threats observed by Symantec were targeting confidential information," he said.
Symantic released the results of its 2010 Enterprise security study this week, which surveyed 2,100 enterprise CIOs, CISOs and IT managers around the world. "Our study shows that 75 percent of enterprises experienced cyber attacks ... We identified that the United States was the top country for malicious activity during this period, accounting for 18 percent of the global total and China was ranked third with 7 percent of the global total," said Weafer.
Malicious activity usually affects computers that are connected to high-speed broadband Internet.
The top countries in this metric, including the United States and China, have extensively developed and growing broadband infrastructures.
China passed the United States for the largest number of broadband subscribers for the first time in 2008, represented 21 percent of the worldwide broadband subscriber total, said Weafer.
Joris Evers, firector of Worldwide Public Relations at McAfee, another major player in computer security, told Xinhua that intellectual property has become a main target of cyber attacks, which means that information-rich organizations and individuals will be a target.
"In our recent Virtual Criminology Report we highlighted that cyber war has become a reality and five countries are at the forefront of arming themselves for cyberwar. These countries are the US, France, Israel, Russia and China," said Evers.
He said attributing blame and finding the source of cyber crime is very tough. Attackers can route their attacks through numerous computers and obscure their actual location, as a result it is always a challenge to pinpoint the source of a cyber attack.
(The author is a writer at Xinhua news agency.)
He told Xinhua in an interview that cyber crime represents today's most prolific threat and said cyber criminals are more determined than ever to steal confidential information.
Attacks continue their shift away from noisy, splashy, large-scale attacks to highly targeted silent attacks motivated by financial gain. They can be commercial entities breaking into competitors' records, or international crime rings stealing valuable data like credit card numbers and e-mail passwords.
"Cyber attacks are increasingly sophisticated, better organized and specifically designed to silently steal data for profit or advantage. Fraud, intelligence gathering and gaining access to vulnerable systems are now the clear motivation behind today's attacks," Weafer said.
"In 2009, 90 percent of threats observed by Symantec were targeting confidential information," he said.
Symantic released the results of its 2010 Enterprise security study this week, which surveyed 2,100 enterprise CIOs, CISOs and IT managers around the world. "Our study shows that 75 percent of enterprises experienced cyber attacks ... We identified that the United States was the top country for malicious activity during this period, accounting for 18 percent of the global total and China was ranked third with 7 percent of the global total," said Weafer.
Malicious activity usually affects computers that are connected to high-speed broadband Internet.
The top countries in this metric, including the United States and China, have extensively developed and growing broadband infrastructures.
China passed the United States for the largest number of broadband subscribers for the first time in 2008, represented 21 percent of the worldwide broadband subscriber total, said Weafer.
Joris Evers, firector of Worldwide Public Relations at McAfee, another major player in computer security, told Xinhua that intellectual property has become a main target of cyber attacks, which means that information-rich organizations and individuals will be a target.
"In our recent Virtual Criminology Report we highlighted that cyber war has become a reality and five countries are at the forefront of arming themselves for cyberwar. These countries are the US, France, Israel, Russia and China," said Evers.
He said attributing blame and finding the source of cyber crime is very tough. Attackers can route their attacks through numerous computers and obscure their actual location, as a result it is always a challenge to pinpoint the source of a cyber attack.
(The author is a writer at Xinhua news agency.)
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