UK web users under siege

UK web users are under daily siege from hackers, according to new research.

And with the proliferation of automated scanning tools available, attackers can just sit back and relax, barely needing to lift a finger to click on their mouse.

A survey from antivirus company Symantec found that 95 per cent of home users with both broadband and dial-up connections were attacked, and that on average, users suffered 56 intrusion attempts per day.

The company equipped 167 users around the country with a firewall and intrusion detection software to monitor the attacks.

Over a one-month period, 95 per cent of the participants were probed, almost always by automated port scanning software. This indicates that the attacker isn't even trying to break in personally: an automated tool is doing it.

Symantec said that 68 per cent of the attacks were attempts to install the notorious Trojan horse called Sub7, which would give the attacker complete control over the infected machine.

The researchers suggested that the biggest motivation for hackers to install Trojan's on machines was to use them as "?zombies" to attack other websites through denial of service type attacks.

Symantec said it was trying to make users aware of how often their systems are attacked and to take steps to protect themselves.

"There's an automated threat out there and people should take responsibility and action to protect themselves," said Aled Miles, UK managing director of Symantec.