-
Related
Police are questioning an 18-year-old Hamilton man accused of heading an international ring of cyber criminals.
The man, known by his cyber ID Akill, is being interviewed as part of an international investigation involving the FBI and Dutch authorities.
The man is accused of being part of a group that has been botnetting, using viruses, spam and corrupt software to ruin large computer systems.
A botnet is a jargon term for a collection of software robots, or bots, which run autonomously and automatically. They run on groups of "zombie" computers.
It is believed botnetting caused the Philadelphia University server to crash last year.
A 20-year-old American student worked with Akill and they called themselves the A Team, reportedly infecting 1.3 million computers and costing victims around $20 million.
New Zealand police were alerted to Akill's involvement by the FBI in Philadelphia.
Electronic crime Lab manager Maartin Kleintjes says the teen police are speaking to is a very intelligent young man. He says a number of computers have been confiscated around the country.
In our backyard
Internet safety group NetSafe says the arrest is a timely reminder that large scale cyber-based organised crime is not something that only happens "over there".
It says that while this is the first time a New Zealander has been arrested as the Botnet controller, many Kiwis will already unknowingly have been recruited into a Botnet and involved in Botnet activities.
"Computers compromised as part of a Botnet do not normally show any outward signs of infection because the criminals controlling the computer do not want to alert the computer owner to their presence," says NetSafe executive director Martin Cocker.
However computer forensic expert Allan Watt says an affected computer may be running rather slowly.
"What they're doing is using your computer to run a whole lot of programmes to target another computer," says Watt.
"Once you've got the knowledge and the tools to be able to commit offences like this it doesn't take much to then infiltrate other computers around the world," he says.
Once compromised and recruited into a Botnet, a computer is accessible and remotely controllable across the internet. The Bot computer can be used to carry out illegal activity such as sending spam, storing illegal content or stolen information, or attacking other computers or networks.
It can also be ordered to report back important information including banking details to the Botnet controller.
"It is important that New Zealanders take precautions to prevent their computer being recruited into a Botnet. Just as we lock our doors to protect our valuables, we can take precautions that make breaking into our computer much more difficult" says Cocker.
Simple ways to secure your computer:
- Install and activate a Firewall
- Install both Antivirus and Anti-spyware software (some products do both)
- Keep all software on your computer up to date, especially the operating system and security software.
For more information at
www.netsafe.org.nz
