Criminal investigation secrets leak onto internet.

Experts at Sophos's global network of virus and spam analysis centers, have reminded internet users of the importance of computer security after media reports revealed that sensitive information has been leaked onto the internet from virus-infected computers.

The Metropolitan Police Department in Tokyo has that personal information about 12,000 people related to criminal investigations has been distributed across the net from an officer's infected computer. The police officer, who had installed the Winny file-sharing software on bis PC, did not realise that a piece of malicious code was making the confidential data available to other users via the peer-to-peer network. About 6,600 police documents are said to have been compromised, including interrogation reports, statements from victims of crime, and classified locations of automatic license plate readers. Among the files was a list of the names, addresses and personal information about 400 members of the criminal Yamaguchi-gumi yakuza gang.

www.sophos.com