Internet Malicious Activities - Malaysia score 2nd
KUALA LUMPUR, April 15 (Bernama) — Malaysia had the second highest number of malicious activities on the Internet and the highest bot-infected computers in Southeast Asia behind Thailand, said Symantec Corp in its latest Internet Security Threat Report released Tuesday.
The report covered a six-month period from July 1 until December 31 last year.
Short for robots, bots are covertly installed on a computer to allow hackers to remotely control the machine for a wide variety of malicious purposes such as data leakage and information and identify theft.
Kannan Velayutham, consultant for Enterprise Security, Malaysia, Symantec said bot-infected are a real concern for online users because their personal information can be easily leaked out and compromised computers can be used as a launch base for other attacks.
The rising growth of broadband penetration in Malaysia is a possible contributing factor to the malicious activities because new broadband users don’t use the additional security precautions required when using on high-speed internet, he said.
“Hackers (cyber criminals) are compromising legitimate web sites and using them as a distribution medium to attack home and enterprise computers, users in the past had to visit intentionally malicious sites or click on malicious e-mail attachments to become a victim of a security threat,” he said.
Ong Kah Wooi, technical consultant manager pre-sales Malaysia, Symantec said the report also found that the “cyber criminals” are seeking confidential information to be used for financial gain. (BERNAMA)
