Cyber criminals seem to have increased their focus on India. According to anti-virus solutions company Kaspersky, 7 per cent of all 45 lakh botnet computers that became victims globally are in India.
Botnet is a network of personal computers that have become slaves of a rouge virus, giving control to cyber criminals. The virus creeps into PCs when people click 'booby-trapped' Web sites (porn and pirated movie sites).
Sitting elsewhere, hackers get control of data on the hijacked PCs. They can also use these servile computers to launch attacks on other computers. It is very difficult to detect this virus, Kaspersky says.
Those who wrote the code for this virus called TDL, Version 4 of which was launched recently, did a clever job. “It hides in places that the security software rarely looks in. The botnet is controlled using custom-made encryption,” Mr Sergey Golovanov, researcher at the Russian anti-virus solutions company, said.
“The changes introduced in TDL-4 make it the most sophisticated threat today. The owners of TDL are essentially trying to create an indestructible botnet that is protected against attacks, competitors, and anti-virus companies,” he added.
The US tops the list with 28 per cent followed by India at 7 per cent and the UK at 5 per cent.