Botnet Worm Brings Down Internet at Dutch Military Center

The air-force center of The Netherlands had its Internet connection down over a period of 3 days during the end-week of March 2011 because a botnet malware had hit unexpectedly. States a source, the malware helped get the PCs at the Gilze-Rijen center recruited to the Rustock network of bots that was taken down during March-end 2011. Radio Netherlands Worldwide reported this in news on April 1, 2011.

Moreover, the Internet problem also affected the PCs at another center, Soesterberg that has been officially decommissioned. The Rustock unleashed a massive volume of junk e-mails during March 25-28, 2011, as per telecompaper.com that published the news on April 4, 2011.

Meanwhile, in a statement, a Dutch Ministry of Defense spokesperson substantiated that the Internet connection got severed when a botnet worm infected the IP addresses that the military personnel utilized. However, the infected PCs were for soldiers' private use on a common online connection and didn't belong to the PC network of the Ministry of Defense. The problem reportedly came into notice at the time contaminated PCs began dispatching massive volumes of spam. Radio Netherlands Worldwide reported this on April 1, 2011.

Furthermore, according to one center's spokesperson, internal PCs aren't strictly put alongside PCs that are explicitly connected to the Internet. Telecompaper.com reported this on April 4, 2011.

Nevertheless, military personnel have an option to subscribe to a private broadband having KPN's "IodL" (Internet op de Legeringkamer) an outsourced facility, which's organizationally and physically not associated with military networks. However, IodL poses certain problems as the IP address every user uses is the same.

Indeed because of weak security, there were more hazards from IodL during the past. Accordingly, during May 2009, it was reported that blocks were threatened with hazards due to insufficient safeguards from spyware, spam and viruses. Even one PC on the IodL connection accompanied with the common IP address, becoming contaminated can result in the connection's closure. Webwereld.nl published this in news on April 1, 2011.

Remarked one center's spokesperson, soldiers using computers privately, of themselves required being responsible for their systems' security. Radio Netherlands Worldwide reported this.

Related article: Botnet Misuses Google Analytics

» SPAMfighter News - 4/13/2011