KOLKATA: India may be poised to become a software superpower by 2020, but it has already emerged as one of the top three spawning grounds for Web-based attacks.
India at third slot, stood next to the US and Brazil in 2009, in terms of countries where such malicious attacks originated, according to Symantec’s Internet Security Threat report. The Web security firm says India figured 13th on the list the previous year.
In terms of overall Web-based malicious activities, India already managed to hit the third slot during 2009, up six notches from 11 during 2008. Countries who outdid India were the US, China, Brazil and Germany.
Additionally, we were the third-highest spam generating country in the world, contributing about 4% to worldwide spam volumes. Spams are bogus mails targeted to extract sensitive information from PC users for wrongful financial gains.
In the Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) region, India ranked first in terms of spamming and contributed 21% to the regional total. About 6% of the world spam zombies and 28% of the APJ regional spam zombies resided in India. Around 1% of the world phishing hosts and 7% of regional phishing were in India.
A zombie, in tech parlance is a computer wired to the Net that has been compromised by a hacker. Zombies are used extensively to send e-mail spams, referred to as spam zombies and most owners of such PCs are unaware that their systems are being used in such ways.
Phishing, on the other hand, is an identity theft in which spammers use an authentic-looking e-mail to trick recipients into providing personal information such as credit card numbers or social security numbers.
What’s more, India ranked first in terms of worms and viruses and second for trojans and backdoors in the APJ region. A worm is a self-replicating malware computer program. It uses a computer network to send copies of itself to other computers on the network all by itself. Trojans and backdoors, on the other hand, are malware programs which keep sending sensitive information to hackers from the infected computers.
The country saw an average of 788 bots per day during 2009. Bots are malwares that turn computers into zombies and there were 62,623 distinct bot-infected computers observed in the country during 2009. Amongst the cities in India with the highest number of bot-infected computers, Mumbai figured at the top with 50% followed by Delhi at 13% and Hyderabad at 7%.
According to Symantec, majority of the malicious codes were propagated through file sharing and executable files. File transfer and common internet file system was the second-most preferred means while the rest was through remotely exploitable vulnerability. Other popular means included file transfer, email attachment, instant messengers, data-bases as well as backdoors.
India at third slot, stood next to the US and Brazil in 2009, in terms of countries where such malicious attacks originated, according to Symantec’s Internet Security Threat report. The Web security firm says India figured 13th on the list the previous year.
In terms of overall Web-based malicious activities, India already managed to hit the third slot during 2009, up six notches from 11 during 2008. Countries who outdid India were the US, China, Brazil and Germany.
Additionally, we were the third-highest spam generating country in the world, contributing about 4% to worldwide spam volumes. Spams are bogus mails targeted to extract sensitive information from PC users for wrongful financial gains.
In the Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) region, India ranked first in terms of spamming and contributed 21% to the regional total. About 6% of the world spam zombies and 28% of the APJ regional spam zombies resided in India. Around 1% of the world phishing hosts and 7% of regional phishing were in India.
A zombie, in tech parlance is a computer wired to the Net that has been compromised by a hacker. Zombies are used extensively to send e-mail spams, referred to as spam zombies and most owners of such PCs are unaware that their systems are being used in such ways.
Phishing, on the other hand, is an identity theft in which spammers use an authentic-looking e-mail to trick recipients into providing personal information such as credit card numbers or social security numbers.
What’s more, India ranked first in terms of worms and viruses and second for trojans and backdoors in the APJ region. A worm is a self-replicating malware computer program. It uses a computer network to send copies of itself to other computers on the network all by itself. Trojans and backdoors, on the other hand, are malware programs which keep sending sensitive information to hackers from the infected computers.
The country saw an average of 788 bots per day during 2009. Bots are malwares that turn computers into zombies and there were 62,623 distinct bot-infected computers observed in the country during 2009. Amongst the cities in India with the highest number of bot-infected computers, Mumbai figured at the top with 50% followed by Delhi at 13% and Hyderabad at 7%.
According to Symantec, majority of the malicious codes were propagated through file sharing and executable files. File transfer and common internet file system was the second-most preferred means while the rest was through remotely exploitable vulnerability. Other popular means included file transfer, email attachment, instant messengers, data-bases as well as backdoors.
Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com
