Infosecurity

US leads the world in internet attacks

By Jianggan Li | 11 December 2008

The United States has overtaken China as the country hosting the most web-based malware. And American computers now relay more spam than in any other country.

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According to the Security Threat Report 2009 published by IT security firm Sophos, American web sites now hosts 37 per cent of the world’s malware and computers in the US relay 17.5 per cent of the spam messages sent globally.

The country’s network is also carrying the most malicious web pages.

As evidence of this, the report says, when an American internet company, accused of collaborating with spammers and hackers, was disconnected from the net in November, there was a stunning 75 per cent drop in spam.

The report, which examines the threat landscape over the last twelve months, also reveals that in 2008 organised criminal gangs tripled their attacks against innocent web sites, injecting malicious code to infect visiting home users and businesses.

One new infected webpage discovered by Sophos every four and a half seconds, which is three times faster than in 2007.

In addition, the authors of the report witnessed concerted campaigns by hackers to pose as legitimate anti-virus vendors, creating new professional-looking websites and applications every day with the intention of scaring users into believing that their computers have been compromised.

On average five new ‘scareware’ sites daily; and the figure peaks at 20 on one occasion.

In addition to the rising tide of scareware, SQL injection attacks against web sites is another biggest malware threat seen by the report.

The study also reveals a sharp rise in hackers spamming out malicious attachments, designed to compromise PCs in order to steal identities, money and resources. By the end of 2008, five times more malicious attacks arriving through files attached to emails are being tracked than at the start of the year.

In addition, social networking web sites such as Facebook are increasingly targeted by spammers and spammers and malware authors. Many innocent users’ accounts are broken into in order to send spam and malware to trusted social networks.

Internet attacks are overwhelmingly orchestrated via networks of innocent home computers that have - unknown to their owners - been commandeered by hackers.

The authors of the report are not expecting to see these assaults diminish in 2009. They urge both home users and businesses to be more aware of the threats and adopt relevant protection measures.

The top malware-hosting countries in 2008 are:

1. United States 37.0%
2. China (incl HK) 27.7%
3. Russia 9.1%
4. Germany 2.3%
5. S Korea 2.1%
6. Ukraine 1.8%
7. United Kingdom 1.7%
8. Turkey 1.5%
9. Czech Republic 1.3%
10. Thailand 1.2%