More than 120 countries are now using the web in order to commit Internet-enabled espionage, in a growing trend that represents a major risk to the majority of national governments.

This is the key conclusion of the first virtual criminology report, published today by security company McAfee. Electronic espionage is growing increasingly sophisticated, it finds, moving from “curiosity probes to well-funded and well-organised operations” perpetrated for financial, technical and political gain.

Many such attacks, which occur on a “constant” basis, are designed to “slip under the radar of the governmental systems they are targeting,” says the report.  The activity will constitute one of the biggest security threats in 2008 and beyond, says McAfee.

The report, which draws on expertise from a range of security agencies, including NATO, the FBI, and SOCA,  says many governments remain unaware of the risk and are leaving themselves open to attack.

The rise of cyber-led espionage, and hyper-sophisticated online crime, has been starkly underlined on several occasions throughout 2007, the most notable of which occurred in late April and early May when Baltic state Estonia came under systematic electronic attack, crippling the country’s public, government-run and privately owned IT infrastructure.  

It was later revealed that a loosely federated group of cyber-activists were responsible for the attack – although many security experts believe neighbouring country Russia was its chief architect.

Such state sponsored attacks, perpetrated by seemingly unaffiliated groups, are also believed to be a key tactic of Chinese electronic attacks, several of which were uncovered this year against US and UK networks.

Further reading 

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