Europe's 'Landsat' ready for launch

25 February 2015 Last updated at 09:32

The lead spacecraft in Europe's new multi-billion-euro Earth observation (EO) programme is built and ready to go into orbit.

Sentinel-2a will take pictures of the planet's surface in visible and infrared light.

Its data will track everything from the growth of megacities to the variable yields of the world's most important food crops.

The satellite will ship to the Kourou spaceport in the next month.

Its launch on a Vega rocket has been scheduled for 12 June.

The spacecraft will be the mainstay in a fleet of EU Earth observers that are planned to go into operation by the decade's end.

"Sentinel-2 is the workhorse of the system," said Volker Liebig, the European Space Agency's EO director.

"It gives us the optical component. Optical imagery is the backbone for most applications in Earth observation."

Prof Liebig was speaking at the IABG consultancy in Munich where the platform has been undergoing final testing.

Sentinel-2a is essentially Europe's version of the American Landsat mission.

The US satellite series - its current flier is named Landsat-8 - pioneered the science of monitoring the planet from orbit.

It has assembled a continuous record of the world's fluctuating features that stretches back more than 40 years. In satellite terms, it is the gold standard.

Everyone will know Landsat's worth, if only through the use of mapping apps on the web and on smartphones, which all incorporate the data.

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Francois Spoto: "Sentinel-2 and Landsat have very similar mission objectives"

Now, the US effort is to be bolstered by the new European observer, which has been calibrated in such a way that its pictures will be an excellent match with the American ones.

But the European endeavour is far from being a "me too" project.

Its imaging instrument will be sensitive across more bands of light (13 multispectral versus eight), allowing it to discern more information about the Earth's surface; and it will "carpet map" a much wider strip of ground (290km versus 185km). Its colour images have a best resolution of 10m, versus Landsat's 30m.

Moreover, the whole Sentinel concept envisages paired operation, meaning a second satellite, Sentinel-2b, will follow its sister into orbit in 2016.

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Markus Probeck: "A lot of improvements compared to existing satellites"

Tracing the same path but separated by 180 degrees - half the planet - the duo will come back over the same patch of land in rapid fashion. It is a powerful capability that will significantly reduce the time taken to acquire a cloud-free look at a particular location.

At the moment, it can take Landsat, on its own, months or even years to get a completely clear view of some places. Important changes at the Earth's surface can be missed as a consequence.

"With two satellites we have a re-visit over the equator every five days, and at mid latitudes - like over France and the UK - it is every three days," said Esa's Sentinel-2 project manager Francois Spoto.

"This is an extremely frequent re-visit time compared with any sensor currently in orbit. And in our spectral bands, we also have one that allows us to remove light clouds like cirrus."

Satellite remote sensing: The business of making maps

• Agriculture: Gathering crop statistics and yield assessments
• Urban: Planning city-wide infrastructure improvements
• Forests: Checking de- or re-forested areas for treaty purposes
• Biodiversity: Understanding the habitats where wildlife exist
• Health: Tracking conditions associated with disease spread
• Water: Evaluating water body extents for flood assessments
• Disaster: Making damage maps following major earthquakes
• Cryosphere: Mapping snow fields and glacier melting

Another good parallel with the American cousin is the data policy. It will be open and free to all users.

When the first spacecraft in the new European series was launched last year - a radar satellite called Sentinel-1a - the demand for its more specialised imagery was immense.

The interest in Sentinel-2 data is expected to be just as keen, if not more so. And it will be available in large volumes. Roughly 600GB per day of raw data will be downlinked, using a high-speed laser link if required.

Once processed into the various useable data products, this translates into about 1.7TB - the equivalent of perhaps a few hundred DVD movies.

Heinz Sontag is a project manager with Airbus Defence and Space, which assembled the new satellite: "What Sentinel-2 offers that other optical imagers up there cannot is the continuous ability to image all the surfaces and provide a continuous flow of data, whereas previous missions were only able to take isolated images here and there and you had to mosaic them back together to get a complete picture."

Four further Sentinel missions - to monitor the oceans and the composition of the atmosphere - should be in orbit by 2020.

European nations have so far committed 7.5bn euros (£5.5bn; $8.5bn) to the constellation and its wider operation, with more promised in the future.

The intention is that every Sentinel satellite is replaced at the demise of its mission, ensuring there is continuity of information deep into this century.

"In the past, we've had data for only four or five years in the case of some one-off satellites," explained Markus Probeck, whose GAF company in Munich will be developing applications from Sentinel-2 images.

"This is a programme that is sure to be there for the very long term. This allows users to move to remote sensing-based services because there is the security of knowing that the data will be sustained and available."

European Earth observation constellation being built in orbit

The EU's Copernicus programme will launch a range of satellite sensors this decade to monitor the state of Planet Earth

• Sentinel-1: Radar's advantage is its all-weather observing capability, seeing through cloud. It was launched last year
• Sentinel-2: Multi-wavelength detectors, principally to study land changes. The next satellite to go into orbit
• Sentinel-3: Similar to S2, but tuned to observe ocean properties and behaviour. May get up at the end of the year
• Sentinel-4: An atmospheric sensor on a high-orbiting weather satellite to give a global perspective on gases such as ozone
• Sentinel-5: Another atmospheric sensor, but on a low-orbiting weather satellite, to help monitor air quality
• Sentinel-6: The future European name for the Jason sea-surface height mission jointly run with the Americans

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Clampdown on cold call companies

25 February 2015 Last updated at 14:29

Imposing fines of up to £500,000 on the companies behind cold calls and nuisance text messages is to become easier under changes to the law being made by the government.

The move follows tens of thousands of complaints about cold calling.

Currently, firms can only be punished if the Information Commissioner can prove a call caused "substantial damage or substantial distress".

But from 6 April, that legal requirement is to be removed.

More than 175,000 complaints were made to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) last year about nuisance calls and text messages.

'Spammers' licence'

The government says the number of complaints has risen in the past decade and the issue is particularly acute for the elderly and housebound as such calls can cause distress and anxiety.

In a speech earlier this month, Information Commissioner Christopher Graham described the current law as "a licence for spammers and scammers" and appealed for more powers.

How to deal with cold callers Do:

• Ask cold callers to remove your information from their records
• Find out caller's number from a landline by dialling 1471 after the call
• Check with your phone company if you can be made ex-directory

Don't:

• Give away personal or financial information, even if callers claim to be from a company you know
• Lose your temper. Be firm and hang up if the caller refuses to go away
• Call back phone numbers left on your voicemail, or reply to text messages you don't recognise

Source: BBC Skillswise

The ICO can take action against companies who flout rules on direct marketing, and says it has issued penalties totalling £815,000 to nine firms since January 2012.

But it has been powerless to target other firms behind a large number of unsolicited calls or texts.

It had tried to argue that companies which make a large number of calls could breach the regulations because of the "cumulative effect" of their actions.

But a tribunal upheld an appeal against a £300,000 fine imposed on Manchester-based Tetrus Telecoms after ruling its high volume of text messages about PPI and accident claims did not meet the legal threshold of causing "substantial damage or substantial distress".

Following a six-week public consultation, that threshold is to be removed, according to digital economy minister Ed Vaizey.

He told BBC Breakfast: "At the moment if the Information Commissioner goes after a company, he's got to show the company has caused you - the consumer at home - serious distress, serious harm.

"It's a very high test to pass which is why there have only been nine prosecutions, which is why we want to lower that test."

He said it was "important to recognise" the UK has a "legitimate direct marketing industry... where businesses calling consumers can sometimes bring some benefit" and the ICO "wants after the cowboys".

It will now be up to the ICO to assess when a serious contravention has taken place.

Case study

Martin Shelley, a retired civil servant, said he started receiving cold calls when he moved to his home in the Scottish town of Tillicoultry in 2006.

But it was after he registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) – a list of people who have indicated they do not wish to receive sales and marketing calls – that the number of unwanted calls increased.

Mr Shelley, 63, said: "I'm of a generation that when the phone rang it was an important matter. That's something I have baked into my DNA and it's very hard not to have that kind of reaction.

"These calls are a complete intrusion."

But he said he felt compelled to answer because he had numerous friends and family he often receives calls from.

He gets between three and four cold calls each day, including on weekends.

"I'm in contact with people all the time. The phone is basically a friend but now, most of the time, it's not a friend but someone intruding in my life for no reason.

"I've already stated my preference. I would never in a million years buy something over the phone.

"If these companies make an excessive number of unsolicited calls they should be fined."

'Everyday menace'

The Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) said it was "committed" to dealing with the problem of nuisance calls, and it was looking to introduce mandatory caller line identification so that all marketing callers would have to display their telephone numbers.

It also confirmed that it will look at introducing measures to hold board level executives responsible for nuisance calls and texts.

This follows a report last December from a task force looking at the problem, which called for a review of the rules in order to act as a stronger deterrent to rogue companies.

Shadow minister Chris Bryant said Labour had been calling on the government to act for "years" and welcomed its "belated acceptance of our calls for stronger powers to tackle cold-calling".

The executive director of the consumer organisation Which?, Richard Lloyd, who chaired the task force, welcomed the announcement, saying the calls were "an everyday menace blighting the lives of millions".

But he told BBC's Radio 4 Today programme that telecoms companies also need to "do more to cut off these calls at source".

Why do companies make automated calls?

Organisations make automated calls to generate "leads", which they then sell on to firms who offer the service provided in the message.

In the case of personal injury claims, the leads would essentially be a list of people interested in claiming compensation for a personal injury.

This list is then sold on to a firm which manages personal injury claims. It will contact the people on the list and offer them its services in dealing with possible claims.

Companies or organisations making automated marketing calls are legally meant to have the permission of the person they are calling before they call.

Source: Ofcom

Mr Lloyd said: "Eight out of 10 people have told us they have had an unwanted call or text over the last month, a third of people have said they have been caused distress and they have been feeling intimidated by these calls, so this is a massive problem and we have to get a grip on it.

"If we get the regulators, the government and the telecoms companies working together on this we think we could start seeing a rapid decline in calls but that's going to take a while."

But the Fair Telecoms Campaign, which contributed to the consultation, said the announcement was only a "tiny step in the right direction".

David Hickson, from the campaign, said "using the limited capacities of the ICO and Ofcom can never succeed now that the problem has been allowed to grow to its present scale".

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Google warns Blogger users over porn

24 February 2015 Last updated at 11:42

Google has warned users of its Blogger platform that blogs containing sexually explicit images and videos will be made private on 23 March.

None of the blogs will be deleted, but they will no longer be publicly visible, the tech giant says.

People currently posting adult content are advised to either remove it or make their blogs private themselves.

Blogs created after the March deadline may be taken down if they contain adult material, the updated terms state.

Under the updated adult policy terms, nudity will be allowed on Blogger blogs only if it "offers a substantial public benefit, for example in artistic, educational, documentary, or scientific contexts".

Bloggers are already asked to use the tag "adult" if their site contains explicit material, which means a warning page appears before the site can be accessed.

Under its current terms, Google reserves the right to add that tag itself even if the blog author disagrees.

In 2013 the company banned Blogger sites from carrying adverts for adult websites.

Censorship

Yahoo-owned Tumblr also adjusted its policies on hosting sexual content in 2013, hiding "adult" themed sites from its search tool but reinstated them after a social-media backlash.

Critics have dismissed Google's move as an unnecessary form of censorship.

"Adult content has historically been at the forefront of fighting for free speech and political dissent, and this won't be changing anytime soon," wrote journalist and sex columnist Violet Blue on ZDNet.

"Sexual and erotic expression is protected speech, and pornography is not illegal."

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Pebble crowdfunds new smart watch

24 February 2015 Last updated at 15:01 By Zoe Kleinman Technology reporter, BBC News

Pebble is returning to crowdfunding website Kickstarter to build its second smartwatch, Pebble Time.

The new device will have a colour e-paper display and up to seven days battery life, the firm claimed.

It will also have a microphone enabling users to send short voice replies to notifications and messages received from the watch via their smartphone.

Pebble raised more than $10m (£6.4m) in crowdfunding for its first generation device.

It has since sold more than one million Pebble watches.

In the first hour following the announcement of Pebble Time more than $2m (£1.2m) had been raised by roughly 11,000 backers, smashing the device's initial fundraising target of $500,000 (£323,000).

"Pebble was first brought to life by 69,000 backers and people who supported our vision three years ago. We could not think of a better way to share our new watch," said Eric Migicovsky, chief executive of Pebble.

"With Pebble Time, we're launching completely new hardware and re-imagined software."

The new watch will be 20% thinner than its predecessor and comes with a smart accessories port which the firm hopes will encourage developers to build hardware for it.

A new operating system organises alerts chronologically - although the screen is not a touchscreen.

Pebble intends to ship the new watch to its crowdfunder backers at the end of May, and have it on sale worldwide by the end of the year with a retail price of $199 (£128).

Some experts said that size was one factor affecting the smartwatch industry.

"It seems more intelligent but one problem will be readability under various light conditions," said watch expert Alexander Linz.

"I have to wear reading glasses - I couldn't read a watch without glasses.

"A mini screen with limited resolution will probably not have big success because it is hard to read - even the iPhone got bigger in the end."

Mr Linz added that future generations of smart watches were likely to come with Near Field Communication (NFC) tools, enabling the device to be more autonomous - which Pebble Time does not have.

"NFC will be the future," he said.

"Without it, take away the smartphone and ask yourself what is left. It's a mirror on your wrist mirroring information from your phone."

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US offers $3m for hacker's arrest

24 February 2015 Last updated at 22:57

The US has offered a $3m (£1.94m) reward for information on a Russian hacker, the highest the US authorities have ever offered in a cybercrime case.

Evgeniy Bogachev was charged last year in the US with being behind a major cybercrime operation that allegedly stole more than $100m (£64.7m).

He was last seen in Russia, where he is believed to remain at large.

Arresting him may be difficult, as the US does not have an extradition treaty with Russia.

Mr Bogachev, also known as "lucky12345" and "slavik", is accused of running the GameOver Zeus attack network, thought to have infected more than one million computers.

Victims were tricked into downloading malware - malicious software - which then searched specifically for financial information.

'60 cyber-threats'

Evgeniy Bogachev was charged last year on counts including conspiracy, wire, bank and computer fraud, and money laundering, after the FBI said it broke up the network.

He is one of the FBI's most wanted cyber-criminals.

"This reward offer reaffirms the commitment of the US government to bring those who participate in organized crime to justice, whether they hide online or overseas," the US State Department said.

The reward is being offered for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Mr Bogachev.

The head of the FBI's cyber crime division, Joseph Demarest, said Russia's internal security agency had expressed an interest in working with the US on cybercrimes, according to Reuters, but did not link it to the Bogachev case.

He also said the agency was aware of 60 different cyber-threat groups linked to nation-states, but gave no further details.

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VIDEO: Brain-controlled drone shown off

Technology that allows a drone to be piloted from the ground using only a person's brainwaves has been demonstrated in Portugal.

The company behind the development, Tekever, said the technology could in the short term be used to enable people with restricted movement to control aircraft.

Longer term the firm said piloting of larger jets, such as cargo planes, could be controlled in this way without the need for a crew on board.

However, one aviation expert told the BBC he thought the industry would be unlikely to adopt such technology due to a perception of being potentially unsafe.

'Everyday activity'

Drone specialist Tekever, which works with security firms, police forces and the military, adapted existing Electroencephalography (EEG) technology so it could issue instructions to the software used to give the unmanned drone instructions.

EEG works by detecting activity in specific parts of the brain. After several months of training, "pilots" are said to be able to teach their brain how to think about moving a small circle on a computer screen either up or down, which in turn steers the drone left or right.

"We believe people will be able to pilot aircraft just like they perform everyday activities like walking or running," said Ricardo Mendes, Tekever's chief operating officer.

"We truly believe that Brainflight represents the beginning of a tremendous step change in the aviation field, empowering pilots and de-risking missions, and we're looking forward to deliver these benefits to the market with highly innovative products."

'Bridge too far'

In the future, some of this technology may be put to use to control much larger aircraft, although Mr Mendes acknowledged considerable challenges with both regulatory hurdles and public confidence.

Those concerns were echoed by John Strickland, an independent aviation consultant based in London.

"This to me is certainly at the moment a bridge too far," he told the BBC.

"You could get someone radically-minded who might say it, but I'd be surprised if anyone would do it."

Mr Strickland said the airline industry was instead focusing its innovation efforts towards things like better materials and more economical engines.

Mr Mendes said the technology would incorporate safety measures to counteract the effects of someone having, for example, a seizure while piloting.

"There are algorithms on board that prevent bad things from happening," he told the BBC.

He added: "Technology is evolving, regulations are evolving. [Unmanned jets are] obviously going to happen. The question is not if, it's when."

Follow Dave Lee on Twitter @DaveLeeBBC

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Sim card firm confirms hack attacks

25 February 2015 Last updated at 11:04

The Dutch Sim card maker at the centre of NSA-GCHQ hacking claims has said it believes that the US and UK cyberspy agencies did indeed launch attacks on its computer systems.

However, Gemalto denied that billions of mobile device encryption keys could have been stolen as a result.

The Intercept alleged last week that spies had obtained the "potential to secretly monitor" voice and data transmissions after hacking the firm.

Gemalto operates in 85 countries.

Its clients include AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon and Sprint among more than 400 wireless network providers across the world.

GCHQ and the NSA have not commented directly on the allegations.

Fake emails

In a statement, Gemalto said it had carried out a "thorough investigation" following the claims, which were based on documents leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

"The investigation into the intrusion methods described in the document and the sophisticated attacks that Gemalto detected in 2010 and 2011 give us reasonable grounds to believe that an operation by NSA and GCHQ probably happened," the company said.

It highlighted two "particularly sophisticated intrusions" that it suggested the agencies were responsible for.

It said the first had involved a breach of one of its French offices, where hackers had attempted to spy on messages sent both internally between Gemalto employees and externally to others.

The second, it said, had involved fake emails being sent to one of its customers that appeared to come from a Gemalto address. These featured an attachment that triggered a malware download.

"At the time we were unable to identify the perpetrators but we now think that they could be related to the NSA and GCHQ operation," the statement added.

"These intrusions only affected the outer parts of our networks - our office networks - which are in contact with the outside world.

Onion and orange

"The Sim encryption keys and other customer data in general, are not stored on these networks.

"It is important to understand that our network architecture is designed like a cross between an onion and an orange; it has multiple layers and segments which help to cluster and isolate data."

The company added that no breaches had been found in parts of its system used to manage other products including the encryption security it provides for banking cards, ID cards and electronic passports.

The statement appears to contradict claims made in leaked materials published by the Intercept.

The news site published a presentation slide, allegedly sourced from GCHQ, which stated that agents had "successfully implanted" code in several of Gemalto's machines, compromising its "entire network".

Other documents - said to be from a wiki tool - appeared to confirm that GCHQ agents were monitoring data transmissions by Gemalto employees as part of efforts to create a database of Sim card encryption keys.

Analysis: Rory Cellan-Jones, technology correspondent

That the intelligence agencies might seek to gain access to the data held by communications companies comes as no surprise - and we know that often data is handed over after the agencies make legal approaches to the firms.

But now Gemalto has confirmed that its office network may have been hacked by GCHQ and the US's NSA.

The company goes on to express severe doubts over whether the agencies got hold of any encryption keys - and to point out than in any case any calls on 3G or 4G networks would not have been vulnerable to interception.

One telecoms expert told the BBC that hacking Sim cards would not have been a useful approach for the agencies because they would then have to deploy monitoring equipment at any mast an individual phone owner might use.

But the admission from Gemalto that it did come under what could have been an illegal attack will do nothing to improve the already tense relations between technology companies and the law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

How was the hack alleged to work?

Each Sim card has an individual encryption key, installed by the chip manufacturer, that secures communications between the handset in which it inserted and mobile phone masts.

This means that if anyone were to snoop on conversations or text messages, they would receive garbled, unintelligible data.

That is, of course, unless those carrying out the surveillance get hold of the encryption key. With that information, they can even decrypt previously intercepted communications.

However, this tactic works only for phone conversations and text messages.

Communications through mobile applications such as Whatsapp, iMessage and many email services have separate encryption systems.

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Apple hit by huge iTunes patent bill

25 February 2015 Last updated at 13:13 By Leo Kelion Technology desk editor

Apple has suffered a patent defeat involving some of the technologies it uses in its iTunes store.

The company has been ordered to pay $533m (£344m) to Smartflash, a British Virgin Islands-based firm that owns and licenses tech-related patents but does not make products itself.

Smartflash had asked for a bigger payout, but said it was "happy" with the verdict.

Apple said it intended to appeal and called for patent reform.

"We refused to pay off this company for the ideas our employees spent years innovating and unfortunately we have been left with no choice but to take this fight up through the court system," the iPhone maker said in a statement.

Apple's defeat by Smartflash is the latest in a series of victories by companies referred to as non-practising entities (NPEs), and denounced by their critics as being "patent trolls".

Earlier this month, Samsung was ordered to pay Rembrandt IP $15.7m for infringing two Bluetooth-related patents, and security firm Symantec was told to pay Intellectual Ventures $17m for using two anti-malware inventions it owned.

The scale of the penalty imposed on Apple was, in part, determined by the fact that the jury felt the tech giant had not only used Smartflash's intellectual property without permission, but had also done so "wilfully" - meaning it had been aware of the infringement.

Calculation

The jury found in Smartflash's favour in all three of the patents involved in the case.

The intellectual property filings described techniques to manage the storage of audio and video files, apps and games, including ways to ensure the data had been purchased properly before being allowed to run on a portable device.

Smartflash had sought $852m in damages for Apple's unauthorised use of the patents, basing its calculation on the number of Mac computers, iPhones and iPads that had been sold.

Apple had attempted to argue that the patents were either invalid or worth less than $5m.

According to the Bloomberg news website, Smartflash will next go to trial against Samsung in a related dispute.

It said the company had also sued Amazon and Google.

NPEs accounted for more than half of all patent cases filed in the US, according to a report published by PricewaterhouseCoopers last year. It said most were settled out of court or dismissed.

President Obama has urged Congress to "combat patent trolls" by reforming the legal system they operate in.

But others note that NPEs can play an important role by creating a market for inventions developed outside the largest company's labs.

"If you are a small start-up, a university or other researcher you may not be able to bring a product to market that would take billions of dollars to develop and would compete with the established big players," said Ilya Kazi, from the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys.

"But you may have come up with a genuine innovation, and there is a role to be played to protect that innovation and extract a royalty for it."

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5G researchers achieve record speed

25 February 2015 Last updated at 13:46

Record-breaking speeds have been achieved during tests of 5G data connections, scientists have said.

Researchers at the University of Surrey's 5G Innovation Centre (5GIC) managed one terabit per second (Tbps) - many thousands of times faster than current data connections.

The head of the 5GIC said he hoped to demonstrate the technology to the public in 2018.

Ofcom has said 5G could be available in Britain by 2020.

At 1Tbps, it would be theoretically possible to download a file 100 times the size of a feature film in about three seconds. The speed is more than 65,000 times faster than average 4G download speeds.

It is also far in excess of the previous best achieved in tests: Samsung's 7.5 gigabits per second (Gbps), which is less than 1% of the Surrey team's speed.

According to news website V3, 5GIC director Prof Rahim Tafazolli said: "We have developed 10 more breakthrough technologies and one of them means we can exceed 1Tbps wirelessly. This is the same capacity as fibreoptics but we are doing it wirelessly."

His research team built its own kit and carried out the tests in lab conditions over a distance of 100m.

'Step change'

It remains to be seen whether it will be possible to replicate the speeds in real-world conditions. Prof Tafazolli said he wanted to carry out more tests around the university's campus before going public.

"We want to be the first in the world to show such high speeds," he said.

The regulator Ofcom has been supportive of efforts to get 5G to the public and, last month, it called for input from the industry on how to go about it.

It has said that 5G would be able to use very high-frequency spectrum - above 6 GHz - to run a range of services - from holographic projections to financial trading.

The regulator said it expected 5G mobile to be capable of delivering between 10 and 50Gbps, compared with the 4G average download speed of 15Megabits per second (Mbps).

Speaking as Ofcom launched its consultation in January this year, its acting chief executive Steve Unger said: "5G must deliver a further step change in the capacity of wireless networks, over and above that currently being delivered by 4G."

The breakthrough by the 5GIC team brings that one step closer. But Prof Tafazolli said there were hurdles to overcome before 5G would be ready

"An important aspect of 5G is how it will support applications in the future. We don't know what applications will be in use by 2020, or 2030 or 2040 for that matter, but we know they will be highly sensitive to latency.

"We need to bring end-to-end latency down to below one millisecond so that it can enable new technologies and applications that would just not be possible with 4G," he told V3.

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Major zombie botnet forced offline

25 February 2015 Last updated at 15:46

A network of computers that has spread malware to millions of machines has been shut down, police have said.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) worked with forces across Europe to tackle servers used by the Ramnit "botnet", which could be used to access sensitive information.

The botnet spread malware that would give criminals control of users' computers, leaving them vulnerable.

Officers have urged people to check whether their computers were infected.

They said about three million machines had been affected, including about 33,000 in the UK.

One of the botnet's command-and-control servers targeted by the NCA was in Gosport, Hampshire.

Malicious

An NCA spokesman said that Ramnit had spread the malware via seemingly trustworthy links sent out on phishing emails or social-networking websites.

He said: "If users running Windows operating systems clicked on the links, the malware would be installed, infecting the computer.

"Infected computers would then be under the control of criminals, enabling them to access personal or banking information, steal passwords and disable antivirus protection."

The agency's National Cyber Crime Unit (NCCU) worked with the authorities in the Netherlands, Italy and Germany, in an effort coordinated through Europol's European Cybercrime Centre, to target the command-and-control servers used to run the scheme.

'Criminals'

A botnet is a series of infected computers that can be used to perform tasks remotely. For example, they are sometimes used in distributed denial of service attacks to flood servers with requests.

In this case, it was being used to send out the malicious links.

Steve Pye, from the NCCU, said "This malware effectively gives criminals a back door so they can take control of your computer, access your images, passwords or personal data and even use it to circulate further spam messages or launch illegal attacks on other websites."

He added that thousands of ordinary computer users in Britain were "at risk of having their privacy and personal information compromised".

The NCA said it was advising people to check whether their computer had been infected by downloading free specialist disinfection software.

It said people could find the software by visiting Get Safe Online or Cyber Streetwise

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