June 17, 2005

NISCC warns on Asia e-mail targeting

by brian_turner

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thank you for visiting!

A report by the UK National Infrastructure Security Co-ordination Centre (NISCC) warns of the increasing sophistication of Trojan horses in e-mails.

The advice, issued to the 1,000 UK government departments and businesses which are part of the UK’s Critical National Infrastructure (CNI), says organised gangs are using distribution e-mail lists to produce e-mails that appear legitimate and relevant.

The NISCC works with the CNI to protect computer systems which run critical infrastructure, such as telecommunications, energy, and power station networks.

According to The Home Office, many of the attacks seem to originate from Asia. A Home Office spokesman said that the scale of industrial attacks is unprecedented and they are very well structured and organised.

NISCC communicates constantly with the CNI about net security, but the report and protection advice on its website, have been made public to ensure that the message reaches those who fall outside the usual CNI channels of communication. The decision was made to publicise the information because of the scale and organised nature of the attacks.

Trojan horses are small, malicious programs usually concealed in e-mail attachments or on a website. Once they are unwittingly launched, they perform a number of functions such as secretly install keylogging programs which can then gather sensitive passwords and other information.

Sophos, the net security firm recorded a 300% increase in the number of keylogging Trojans alone in the last year. The company advises that every computer used for business should be protected with up-to-date anti-virus software and a firewall.

Discuss this in the Internet Business forums

Story link: NISCC warns on Asia e-mail targeting

Add to Bookmarks: