China: Online Crime Hotspot

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08-May-2005

A new report reveals 20% of online crime can be traced to China.

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The figures, revealed by security firm Ciphertrust, demonstrate that 20% of the world's hijacked computers, fraudulent websites and sites with illegal content are to be found in China. China is the world's second largest net-using population.

It appears that the country's problem with spam can be attributed to the government's recent decision to relax email filtering processes.

Hijacked computers are attacked through the use of Trojans and other variants which allow the PC to fall under the remote control of the hacker, who may then use the computer to send out thousands of spam emails with the PC's genuine owner often unaware.

It appears that the Chinese themselves are increasingly falling foul to spam attacks and virus problems. Since the relaxation of the rigid controls that the government set in place to control communication over the internet, spam and viruses now have a free reign to roam China and attack computers.

The Chinese though have some cause for comfort - they hardly ever fall victim to phishing scams. Why? The Chinese do not have credit cards and online banking facilities are in their infancy.

Chinese spam attacks often differ from Western spam emails, in that porn offers are rarely seen. Instead, offers of further education tuition and learning foreign languages are more common.

MillerSmiles News

08/05/05

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