AusCERT notes substantial growth of computer security incidents

Computer security incidents grew dramatically in 2000, according to researchers from the Australian Computer Emergency Response Team (AusCERT) at The University of Queensland.

AusCERT is a subscription-based organisation with members distributed throughout Australia and New Zealand in the government, commercial and education sectors.

According to UQ's Director of Information Technology Services and AusCERT Nick Tate, a total of 8197 computer security incidents were reported to AusCERT last year representing a four-fold increase on the number reported in 1999.

"Incidents were commonly either network scans, viruses or distributed denial of service attacks," Mr Tate said.

"The number of Distributed Denial of Service attacks has increased. In part this is due to the development by the intruder community (also known as ?hackers') of more sophisticated versions of these tools."

The following statistics were drawn from incidents reported from sites both inside and outside Australia, although the majority of incidents were reported by sites within Australia and New Zealand.

Year Total incidents

1998-1342
1999-1816
2000-8197

Mr Tate said the number of attacks using viruses also increased. "Examples of the most popular virii during 2000 were ?Love Letter Worm', ?Navidad Worm' and ?Hybris Worm' among others," he said.

AusCERT had also received an increasing number of reports of web-page defacement throughout Australia and New Zealand, he said.

AusCERT is an operational arm of The University of Queensland. It is funded primarily through membership fees, with some additional income from value-added services such as research, training and education. It has a strong focus in the Asia-Pacific region.

AusCERT recently won the Government-service delivery category at the Asia/Pacific (Queensland) IT awards in December 2000. Previous honours include winning the SANS 1998 Technology Leadership Award.

For more information, contact Mark McPherson (telephone 07 3365 4417 or email: auscert@auscert.org.au) or Rob McMillan (telephone 07 3365 4417 oremail: auscert@auscert.org.au), visit the AusCERT website: http://www.auscert.org.au or contact Shirley Glaister at UQ Communications (telephone 07 3365 2339 or email: s.glaister@mailbox.uq.edu.au).