back to article Gov systems found on 1.9m zombie botnet

Government and corporate Windows PCs were among the ranks of a 1.9 million botnet recently discovered by net security firm Finjan. Finjan security researchers discovered the control server of the botnet after tracing back an infection from a corporate client. Evidence on the cybercrime server, which was hosted in the Ukraine, …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Linux

    Yet ANOTHER reason...

    ...to ditch Windows and move to Linux.

  2. Frink

    Well done AVG

    Why pay more...

  3. Dan Howarth
    Coat

    BuzzWord of the Day - 22 April 2009

    "cyber-"

    Cybercrime, cybercrooks, cybergang...

    Seriously... If I want "i", "e" or "cyber" in front of everything, I'll read BBC News' technology section.

    Getting my coat, because even el Reg seems to be dumbing down.

  4. R MacKay

    Whoops

    All your data are belong to us. Government, security,joke.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    B, b, b, b, b, but....

    I thought Firefox was immune to attacks ?

  6. This post has been deleted by its author

  7. Martin Silver badge

    Erm....

    These machines are behind a firewall right

    They only have official paid for software installed

    They are only used for official government business, no looking at dodgy websites.

    USB keys aren't allowed anymore.

    They are managed by expensive EDS/Cap Gemini/IBM etc consultants.

    Shouldn't somebody be fired when a machine gets a virus?

  8. John Bayly

    Pretty brave of them to highlight Government incompetence

    As we all know, it an offence under the (Anti-)Terrorism Act to embarrass the Government. Wait for the news of the Terrorist squad to arresting them a 6am and threatening them with life imprisonment.

  9. Andrew Barratt

    oops

    oops.

  10. Sillyfellow
    Stop

    now it gets attention

    yeah, so only now that govt systems got infected the police are suddenly interested in this type of thing.. typical ! especially considering that this botnet case is pretty much resolved already.

    i'm confident that i'm not alone with story of police completely disinterested and apparently lacking manpower for such low priority e-crime.

    my credit card details stoilen and very stupidly (you would think) used by crooks to pay congestion charge for their vehicle. of which we got the details and handed to police. it would have been a simple matter to get their details from their car registration from transaction details supplied, then go and arrest them. i certainly wanted to press charges.

    but nope. police were far too busy with other matters to do their job, for which i pay over the top taxes for.

    thank you for listening to my ranty complaint.

  11. Mark Major

    Administrator rights

    This is all about letting users on with administrator rights, right? Pretty easy fix there then.

  12. John O'Hare
    Happy

    @Martin

    "Erm....

    These machines are behind a firewall right

    They only have official paid for software installed

    They are only used for official government business, no looking at dodgy websites.

    USB keys aren't allowed anymore.

    They are managed by expensive EDS/Cap Gemini/IBM etc consultants.

    Shouldn't somebody be fired when a machine gets a virus?"

    You must be new here... (i.e. on this planet).

  13. Tony Paulazzo
    Flame

    Stupid here

    But how do you find out if your system is compromised? I have Bitdefender 2008 (the 2009 version I don't like), and I run Malwarebytes once a week and Vista (I know, I know), fully updated. Neither mention zombie botnets.

    Governments chase after child porn and terrorist sites but they do fuck all against Nigerian scammers and Russian infections (as examples only). Why am I paying taxes again? to imprison couples who lie about where their kids live (erm, politicians and their 'second home') and owners who have dogs that poop on pavements (see: politicians befouling the world around them).

    Not happy, not happy at all.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Linux

    Software....

    Why are the Gov. Especially those departments with access to sensitive data, Using propetiery public software?

    Why not use a bit og GPL software. with some modding. The ole' security through obscurity trick!

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