In Europe, police have stepped up enforcement as well. Earlier this year, Dutch authorities arrested two local hackers for infecting millions of PCs with a zombie code. The two men are currently serving prison terms.
Despite the recent string of arrests, however, law enforcement is losing the battle. The anonymous and globe-spanning nature of the crime, the vast number of available high-speed PCs available for sabotage and the quick paydays make this a tempting line of work for savvy criminals. Law enforcement experts say the biggest culprits are crime syndicates operating out of Eastern Europe and Russia where the local authorities lack the know-how or resolve to dismantle these rackets.
In fact, three years on, the botnet problem appears to be going from bad to worse.
Earlier this month, British cyber security specialists at Sophos reported the number of newly infected webpages appearing online each day in May surpassed 9,500, a 10 per cent increase over April. The vast majority of these websites serve one function: infecting more computers, Sophos said.
These bogus sites typically contain a piece of nasty code, or “malware”, that springs into life whenever a web surfer navigates onto the page. This stealthy piece of code typically attaches itself to the computer users’ hard drive and voila that person has been recruited into a zombie network. Security experts advise computer users to install the latest anti-virus software as a way of dramatically minimising infection. In the ongoing battle against botnets, it may be the only defence.
Sofos offers advice on how to avoid falling prey to botnet operators.
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Bernhard Warner is a technology reporter based in Rome. He is the former European Internet Correspondent for Reuters and, prior to that was a senior editor at The Industry Standard. His work has appeared in Wired, The Times Online, Time and The Guardian, to name a few. He also works as a Web 2.0 consultant for Custom Communication
