About 4/5th of online malicious attacks targeting India in 2009 originated in foreign soil, a report from Symantec notes. Attacks originated from the US, Germany, China, Brazil, Taiwan, UK, Canada, Japan, and Russia.
In fact, India is rapidly climbing up the chart of countries with the largest malicious activity because of higher broadband penetration. The country jumped to the fifth spot from 11 th, for such activity, following the US, China, Brazil, and Germany.
The broadband explosion is leading to more websites and consequently, more security issues. India, along with other emerging nations, is also among places where a lot of the web-based attacks originate, according to Symantec?s ?Threat Report?.
In 2009, 4% of the attacks originated in India compared to 2% in 2008. The US was the biggest country of origin, accounting for 23% of the attacks last year. India now accounts for 15% of all malicious activity in the Asia Pacific Japan region compared to 10% in 2008.
The report said that India, on an average, had 788 bots per day and 62,623 bot-infected computers in 2009. Bot networks were responsible for the distribution of 85% of all spam mail. Botnet is a collection of compromised computers and a botnet operator can control them remotely for criminal activities.
Mumbai, India?s largest city by population, was the worst-affected, contributing to 50% of the active bots. Delhi, Hyderabad and Bangalore contributed 13%, 7%, and 6%, respectively. The rapid growth of the underground economy and web-based attacks in particular, is fuelling the online software security market as well as the business authentication market.