India has ranked third on the list of countries worldwide most affected by phishing, recent studies about security and spam in the cyber world have said. A recent report by Kaspersky said India was only behind US and Russia with almost 10 per cent of all cyber attacks in the world aimed at the country. Studies have also suggested that the country has consistently been among the countries producing the most spam on the internet. The threats to the country have only increased in the last couple of years. Rough estimates by industry experts put the number of internet users in the country at around 15 crores which is just about 12 per cent of the population. Studies by Kaspersky suggested that phishing attacks in India more than doubled during 2012 as compared to those in 2011. According to the study, the country also has the fifth highest number of hostile servers in the world from where online attacks originate. Social media sites including Facebook were also high on the radar of attackers citing vulnerable users with minimum security. “Attacks involving fake FB pages rose, accounting for 9.69% in 2012-2013,” the report said. Another recent report by Symantec said that India has seen an increase of nearly 280 per cent in infections of computers caused by malicious software. The report also said about 28 crore spam messages originate from India every day. These spam mails can contain malicious software that can infect computers posing a severe threat. The report also said emerging cities like Vizag are high on the radar of cyber attackers
Posted on: Sun, 23 Jun 2013 22:35:33 +0000