2,140 Malaysia's compromised servers vulnerable to cyber attacks

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia has been identified as the top country in the Southeast Asia with the most compromised servers, exposing among others government network which are vulnerable to cyber attacks.

According to Director of APAC Global Research and Analysis Team Kaspersky Lab, Vitaly Kamluk, this astounding revelation was derived from an investigation done by Kaspersky Lab, which discovered 'xDedic', an underground marketplace for hacked servers, that placed 2,140 Malaysian compromised servers on sale.

"The marketplace which acts like an eBay, is the global forum which facilitates the selling and purchasing of compromised Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) servers, available for as low as US$6 (RM25).

"It is a powerful, well-organised, offering everyone cheap and easy access to legitimate organisational infrastructure that keeps their crimes below the radar as long as possible," he said through an online media briefing, here, today.

Currently, Kamluk said there are 70,264 servers from 173 affected countries on sale, offered by 416 unique sellers in this marketplace.
He said Malaysia is ranked 10th worldwide with the most compromised servers.

"What is more worrying, the owners of the servers, had little idea or unaware that their information technology (IT) infrastructure has been compromised.

"Members of the xDedic forum can access all of the server's data and use it for further malicious attacks, comprising targeted attacks, malware, phishing, and adware attacks, among others," he told reporters during a press briefing today. — Bernama