Govt PCs caught in Ukranian botnet

A security firm has claimed that PCs owned by UK government departments have been caught in a botnet being run by criminals in the Ukraine.

Finjan said that it had provided law enforcement agencies in the UK and the US, whose government's systems were also affected, with details of the gang.

The government refused to confirm or deny Finjan's claims.

A botnet is a network of computers which have been hacked into and are being used to carry out tasks such as sending spam email in bulk without their owners' knowledge.

BBC Click, the BBC's technology programme, caused controversy last month when it took over a botnet for an experiment.

The Ukrainian gang managed to infect the computers using Trojan horse malware, which operates silently leaving few traces of its existence.

"Cybercriminals keep on looking for improved methods to distribute their malware and Trojans are winning the race," said Yuval Ben-Itzhak of Finjan.

"The sophistication of the malware and the staggering amount of infected computers proves that cybergangs are raising the bar," Ben-Itzhak continued.

Finjan said that the server being used by the gang has been operative since February 2009 and some 1.9 million PCs had been coaxed into the botnet.