Research Indicates Beijing Is World Virus Capital

An anonymous reader writes "The Chinese capital city of Beijing is now a global leader in distributing viruses. According to UK-based managed security services company Network Box, Beijing accounts for 40 percent of all viruses that passed though the company's servers in June, and 5.25 percent of detected spam. This compares with slightly lower percentages for cities in countries noted for having a malware problem. Moscow was second for spam with 5.12 percent, Seoul third with 3.58 percent, Turk in Turkey fourth with 3.4 percent, and London in fifth place at 2.47 percent. 'As more and more users come online in China, there's a good chance those computers are using pirated software without up-to-date security fixes, making them prime targets for hackers who are actually located elsewhere in the world, [Simon] Heron said. Those compromised computers, which are used to send spam and make it more difficult to identify the spammer, are so valuable that hacker gangs have been competing to take over machines. If one gang finds a machine running another gang's Trojan horse program — one that appears harmless to the victim but can be used to control a machine — they'll try to remove the software.'"

Comments

Follow the money ...

[Anne Thwacks]

and 99% leads to America. Not only that, virtually every piece of spam, everywhere, requires payment via an American owned credit card. If the US government made half the effort to restrict use of credit card payements for spam advertised goods that they did for on-line gambling, there would be no spam.

Conclusion: ... G Bush is 100% responsible for failing to stamp out spam.

Virii in my china? It's more likely then you think

[SG_Fry]

Not only does this country have an insane problem with computer security, it also brought us SARS and the soon to come bird flu. WAY TO GO CHINA!!!!

this is not surprising.

[DragonTHC]

china has fired the first volley:

poisoned food.
computer virii. (or viruses for the humans)
email spam.

We will retaliate by opening more chinese armories. (otherwise known as WalMart)