Around 20% of the world's hijacked
computers sending out spam, attacking websites and hosting
unsavoury material are in China, says a report.
The figures, from security firm Ciphertrust, come amid
spiralling rates of internet use in China.
China already has the second biggest
net-using population in the world, even though only 8%
of its people go online.
Now spam and viruses are becoming
big problems, since the government relaxed controls on
the net, an expert says.
Net use is growing fast and by 2007
the number of people using broadband in China should surpass
those in the US.
But China is not just keeping up
on ordinary net use and users, it is also setting the
pace on computer crime too.
Typically the hijacked PCs fall
under the remote control by malicious hackers when the
machines fell victim to a virus such as a worm or Trojan.
Often the controllers of these so-called
zombies do not live in the same nation as the machines
under their sway.
Control key
Ironically much of the spam sent
via these hijacked machines may not reach Chinese people
at all.
But, said Jamz Yaneza, a senior
anti-virus consultant at Trend Micro and an expert on
the Chinese net experience, this does not mean that Chinese
people are free of the problems so familiar to Western
net users.
He said problems of spam, viruses and
the like have recently started to cause big problems in
China.
Trend Micro has signed a deal with
Chinese net service firm Sina.com to help it deal with
virus outbreaks and other computer crimes and misdemeanours.
Mr Yaneza said virus outbreaks,
spam and phishing have only recently become a significant
problem for Chinese net users.
"It's only taken off taken
off ever since government removed some of the controls
which helped avoid what's happened to the rest of the
world," he said.
The Chinese government controls
where people can access the net, which sites they can
look at, the news they get and the topics for discussion
in chat rooms.
This rigid control helped to limit
the effect of viruses and spam but problems have started
to emerge now that some controls are being relaxed, said
Mr Yaneza.
This has let in many of the spam,
phishing and virus laden e-mail messages that would otherwise
be stopped.
Virus outbreak
The only types of e-mail scam that
Chinese net users do not fall victim to is phishing scams
that ask for credit card details. Hardly anyone in China
has a credit card, said Mr Yaneza.
But Chinese people are staggeringly
likely to get hit by other attacks. Recent statistics suggest
that 80% of Chinese net users have fallen victim to a computer
virus. Part of this might be because many
Chinese net users open up English language e-mail messages
just to see what they say.
Mr Yaneza said English is seen as
the language of business and something that Chinese people
are keen to be familiar with, hence their willingness
to click on unsolicited messages.
Chinese people are also less likely
to pick out the scrambled spelling, such as V1agra, that
to many Westerners signifies spam.
"The odd formatting is not
going to be strange to them," he said, "they
expect that because e-mail has gone through so many filters."
Chinese spam has a character all
its own, said Mr Yaneza. By contrast to Japanese spam
which is predominantly sexual, Chinese junk mail plays
on people's aspirations.
Mr Yaneza said Chinese spam was
about free loans for schooling or further education, learning
a language or to help someone expand their business.
"Looking at spam teaches you
something about the culture," said Mr Yaneza.
