RE: UK tops zombie PC chart (again)

["Discini, Sonny" <Sonny.Discini () montgomerycountymd gov>]

> Fergie (Paul Ferguson) wrote:
> > Ran across this article in The Register this morning:
> >
> > [snip]
> >
> > Britain is once again 'top of the bots' with the world's highest 
> > proportion of known bot-infected computers. In the first 
> half of 2005, 
> > The UK has almost a third (32 per cent) of all bots - 
> virus-infected, 
> > zombie PCs under the control of hackers and used for malicious 
> > purposes such as identity theft and spam distribution -. 
> Britain also 
> > topped the chart in the second half of last year with a 
> lower 26 per 
> > cent rating.
> >
> > The statistics, taken from Symantec's Global Internet Threat Report 
> > for the period January to June 2005, are based on the number of PCs 
> > worldwide that are known to be infected with bot agents, 
> such as the 
> > infamous Agobot worm. Bot network activity has increased from below 
> > 5,000 bots per day in December 2004 to an average of 10,352 during 
> > this reporting period.
> >
> > Symantec reckons the likely cause of this rise is down to the rapid 
> > growth in broadband subscriptions and the delayed download 
> of software 
> > patches for operating systems and software.
>
> And their numbers are still ridiculously low. I am happy they 
> are taking 
> the botnet threat seriously though.
>
>       Gadi.


I find it comical that Symantec is tracking these statistics when they
are, by far, the worse of all AV companies in relation to detecting and
removing bot infections. Perhaps efforts should be diverted away from
statistics and back to detection and removal. Wait. That makes too much
sense. Nevermind. 

:-)

Sonny



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