Interpol-led operation finds nearly 9,000 infected servers across Southeast Asia

SINGAPORE — An anti-cybercrime operation by Interpol and investigators from seven Southeast Asian nations revealed nearly 9,000 malware-laden servers and hundreds of compromised Web sites in the region, Interpol said on Monday.

“The operation, run out of the Interpol Global Complex for Innovation ( IGCI), brought together investigators from Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam to share information on specific cybercrime situations in each country. Additional cyber intelligence was also provided by China,” Interpol said in an Apr. 24 statement on its Web site.

Various types of malware, such as that targeting financial institutions, spreading ransomware, launching Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks and distributing spam were among the threats posed by the infected servers, the operation showed.

“This operation helped participants identify and address various types of cybercrime which had not previously been tackled in their countries,” said Francis Chan, head of the Hong Kong Police Force’s cybercrime unit and chairman of Interpol’s Eurasian cybercrime working group.

DDoS attacks have always been among the most common on the Internet, making use of hijacked and virus-infected computers to target Web sites until they can no longer cope with the scale of data requested.

The same operation also identified nearly 270 Web sites infected with a malware code, among them several government Web sites that may have contained citizens’ personal data, Interpol added.

The effort follows a breach this year at Singapore’s Ministry of Defence, when personal details of 850 national servicemen and staff were stolen in what the defence ministry described as a “targeted and carefully planned” attack. —