The surge in Internet usage in India was up by 20 per cent last year. This was accompanied by an increase in exposure to malicious activity, moving India from the 11th place in the global ranking in 2008 to 5th place in 2009. India accounted for 15 per cent of all malicious activity in the Asia-Pacific-Japan (APJ) region, an increase from 10 per cent in 2008, says Symantec Corporation’s latest Internet Security Threat Report. Nineteen per cent of attacks targeting India originated in India itself in 2009, indicating the rise of India as a country of origin and a target for more sophisticated attacks according to Symantec India. The report said that emerging economies such as India, Brazil, Poland, with growing broadband infrastructures, would account for ever-increasing proportions of attacks within specific categories of malware. India, for instance, was ranked very high for Zeus infections. Zeus is a $700 malware attack kit available for sale in the thriving $276mn underground economy that makes information theft easier for cyber criminals. Such kits allow even unskilled attackers to break into online crimes. More alarmingly, malware available in the market is threatening to overtake that of genuine software As Web attacks continue to grow unabated, the number of attacks out of India too has increased. In fact, the Symantec report says India ranks second in the APJ region for the number of Web attacks, accounting for 16 per cent in the region —a significant increase from the previous reporting period when India accounted for less than 1 per cent of the attacks. India also ranks second globally for malicious code, with only the US accounting for more malicious code than India.
One per cent of the world phishing hosts and 7 per cent of the regional phishing hosts were in India. The exploding internet usage have brought in millions of new users with many falling for phishing attacks as reported by Complaints India – Online Scam Complaints India saw an average of 788 bots per day during 2009. There were 62,623 bot-infected computers observed in the country, with Mumbai figuring at the top with 50 per cent, followed by Delhi at 13 per cent and Hyderabad at 7 per cent.
India is the third highest spam-originating country in the world, contributing 4 per cent to the worldwide spam volumes. However, India ranked first in the APJ region, contributing 21 per cent to the regional total.
http://www.complaints-india.com/Online-Scam-Complaints/
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