UK Officially The Most Hacked Country

_Hellfire_ writes "Symantec's Internet Security Threat Report for the second half of 2004 says that the UK is leading the rest of the world with bot networks. The report states that "...25.2% [of bots] are located in the UK. That now puts the country ahead of the US (24.6%), China (7.8%), Canada (4.9%) and Spain (3.8%)". Symantec blames a sudden uptake of residential broadband connections without the awareness of the required security measures."

Comments

Wow, a .6% lead

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how accurate these statistics are.

Re:Wow, a .6% lead

[dominator]

What I find it interesting is that a country with 1/4 the US's population and with a roughly equivalent standard of living represents a roughly equivalent percentage of the world's hacked PCs, even if the difference between the UK and US is within this poll's margin of error.

Is the US public that far behind in broadband connections? Is the UK public engaging in more risky computing practices? Are US ISPs blocking more 0wn3d boxes? Are the UK ISPs incompetent, overwhelmed, or more laisse-faire?

UK rules OK

[dances with elks]

Number one, Number one, Number one, Number one, Number one, Number one, Number one, !! we had to win at something sooner or later

Re:UK rules OK

[Deusy]

We're pretty awesome at binge drinking too, y'know!

Statistics.....

[wpiman]

You have to wonder about this. They show the US at 24.6% of PCs compromise- and the UK at 25.2%. This is well within the margin of error for even the most rigorous of surverying.

Re:Statistics.....

[kevin_conaway]

Ah come on, you can make up statistics to prove anything. 14% of people know that.

Re:Statistics.....

[Monkelectric]

Well, if you think about per capita, the UK has a much worse problem. However, I think what theyre really saying is, "sales of symantec products poor in the UK."

Maybe the brits just know that symantec has been a joke for years.

It's called a hardware NAT router

[jabuzz]

Basically they should be made compulsary for all broadband connections. It is the plethora of cheap USB ADSL modems that are being offered free with connections that it causing the problem.

USA is not #1

[spicydragonz]

Yet another example of the rest of the world overthrowing american hegemony. We all need to do our part to get USA back on top. Install worms and Trojans.

hacking abroad

[cwebb1977]

Or it is because most hackers or script kiddies are located in the US and elsewhere outside the UK and they prefer hacking abroad, because that might limit the possibility of legal troubles.

As a Brit...

[bobintetley]

I can definitely vouch for this, I personally witnessed some 20 odd pieces of malware duking it out on my brothers 2Mbit broadband to see who could relay the most spam.

Since then, I've converted the majority of my friends and family to Debian and they haven't looked back.

Speaking as a non-hacked Brit

[CdBee]

The situation really is bad..
In the last year 512Kbs ADSL Broadband has tumbled in price to little more expensive than unmetered dial-up, and a lot of clueless types bought in

Typical British ISPs provide a USB modem for ADSL or an Ethernet/USB Cable modem, and a driver/configurator disk. No consumer ISP provides a NAT router by default (its a costly option, and usually a crappy rebranded far-eastern product that crashes all the time).

Very few of them even provide a software firewall. AOL is a notable exception (about time they did something right) providing a firewall in their standard AOL Broadband software.

I spend a lot of my free time installing Zonealarm/Sygate Personal for clueless people wondering why their brand new XP box and brand new ADSL connection keep crashing....

Blimey

[stratjakt]

I blame the abundance of Spam from the UK squarely on Monty Python.

Now they want to bring "Spam A Lot" to the US? I don't think so, Nigel.

Time to dump some tea into the harbour.

Re:So... when we talk about the average user

[kevin_conaway]

How about Tommy Two-Pint?

It's the modems!

[GuerillaRadio]

Most of the big ISPs in the UK supply these horrible usb modems for their ADSL service, leaving the only protection being the Windows firewall. I've had to sort out several PCs from friends and family that were brand new, but shipped with XP SP1 and pwned within minutes of plugging these modems in. Contrast this to when I lived in Holland - adsl routers with NAT always supplied or recommended.

Re:True story about a non-hacked Brit's parents

[CdBee]

We need a site called geek-exchange so people like us can swap inconveniently-situated tech problems (ie, I fix your mum's PC if you do my cousin's....)

It'd save us all an awful lot of driving.