The National Broadband Network (NBN) could prove to be a best friend to cyber criminals, according to the head of the Australia’s National Computer Emergency Response Team (AusCERT). Speaking at a cyber security roundtable in Sydney, Graham Ingram, general manager at AusCERT said cyber criminals currently placed a premium on infecting PCs which were connected to high-speed networks. “We have seen cyber criminals reject using dial-up based computers because they aren’t fast enough,” he said. Anecdotally, the penetration of malicious activity had become almost directly proportional to broadband connectivity speed, Ingram said. “The same compromised PCs in homes we have now will be the same ones connecting to a faster communications channel via the NBN,” he said. “This will simply amplify the problems we have now significantly.” Also speaking at the roundtable, chief research officer at F-Secure Mikko Hypponen said connection speed had a decisive role in the selection of PCs for denial of service attacks and spamming botnets. “We have seen malware which when it infects a PC, the first thing it does is connect to a university file server to download a gigabyte size Linux installation DVD package to clock the speed. If it is too slow it just rejects the PC. [Hackers] have so many machines at their disposal they can choose to be picky.” Another implication of the NBN was that it was likely to be leveraged for VoIP services, which were increasingly being used in phishing and other cyber security attacks, Ingram said. Related content brandpost Sponsored by Huawei Beyond gigabit: the need for 10 Gbps in business networks Interview with Liu Jianning, Vice President of Huawei's Data Communication Marketing & Solutions Sales Dept By CIO Online Staff Nov 30, 2023 9 mins Cloud Architecture Networking brandpost Sponsored by SAP Generative AI’s ‘show me the money’ moment We’re past the hype and slick gen AI sales pitches. Business leaders want results. By Julia White Nov 30, 2023 5 mins Artificial Intelligence brandpost Sponsored by Zscaler How customers capture real economic value with zero trust Unleashing economic value: Zscaler's Zero Trust Exchange transforms security architecture while cutting costs. By Zscaler Nov 30, 2023 4 mins Security brandpost Sponsored by SAP A cloud-based solution to rescue millions from energy poverty Aware of the correlation between energy and financial poverty, Savannah Energy is helping to generate clean, competitively priced electricity across Africa by integrating its old systems into one cloud-based platform. By Keith E. Greenberg, SAP Contributor Nov 30, 2023 5 mins Digital Transformation Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe