Thousands targeted by computer hacker

8:48am Wednesday 11th October 2006

THOUSANDS of computers in the UK have come under attack from a hacker in the US stealing credit card details and personal information.

The Metropolitan Police's Computer Crime Unit has launched an investigation into material recovered on an American computer found to contain personal data accessed using a computer virus.

More than 2,300 computers in the UK are thought to have been targeted and some 83,000 files affected.

Email addresses and other confidential data have been recovered, including passwords, credit card numbers and information about on-line transactions.

Police are attempting to notify the victims by email along with internet service providers, banks and other on-line services.

A detective from the Met's Computer Crime Unit said: "The information has been harvested from the computers by a type of malicious code known as a Backdoor.

"It is too early to establish at this stage how the computers have been infected.

"However, there are thousands of computer users worldwide who have had their computers compromised and data stolen."

The head of the Met's Computer Crime Unit believes identity theft performed by computer viruses is on the increase and computer owners are often unaware that it is happening.

The unit is advising computer users to update their antivirus program virus signatures regularly and scan their computers to avoid falling prey to hackers.

Police have the details of all victims involved in this case, so only those who have been contacted should be affected.

Anyone emailed by the Met's Computer Crime Unit about the problem should contact the detectives named on the contact number provided.