Net security report reveals the names of the most favorite botnet hosting ISPs

According to the data from net security firm Damballa western countries such as US, Germany and France occupy top positions in the botnent hosting charts. While China and Russia are known for their gangs that deal with hacking, spamming and cybercrime, these rank far below the western world as compiled by Damballa.

The report shows that for the first half of 2010, almost a quarter (23.9%) of botnet CnC servers were hosted by service providers in the US, followed by Germany with 17.9% and France with 8.6%.

"Half of the servers used by cyber-criminals for the purpose of controlling their botnet empires are located in commercial hosting facilities within countries not traditionally associated with this kind of crime," writes Gunter Ollmann, VP Research at Damballa.

"The ability to host a server is typically independent of where the criminals are actually located and the type of victims they are trying to capture."

Internet hosting firms 1&1 Internet AG in Germany and AT&T have unwittingly become favourite control points for cybercrooks, according to Dambella. 1&1 Internet alone accounts for more than one in 10 botnet command and control servers.

"ISPs and hosting providers listed in the top 10 do not necessarily conduct criminal practices, but they have found themselves in a position of being 'preferred' by the criminals operating the botnets," said Ollman.

"This preference may be due to a very broad range of reasons. Regardless, the hosting providers within the top-10 may wish to investigate what makes them so attractive to criminals and should strive to become less so over time."