Symantec Puts India on 'Red Alert'

Red Alert! The Indian ecosystem is found to be under threat from viruses, malicious codes, bots, command-control servers, spammers, phishers, the works. Symantec says so in its latest Internet Security Threat Report.

As part of the report, Symantec researchers have discovered that India is a hub for no less than over 40 command-control servers.

And Mumbai has the highest number of bot-infected computers, accounting for 38 percent of the total; followed by New Delhi with 25 percent; Bangalore with 15 percent; and Chennai with 10 percent.

Prabhat Kumar Singh, Director of Security Response, Symnantec, says they have detected a per day average of 277 active bot-infected computers functioning in the country. Meanwhile in the Asia-Pacific region, 19,095 active bot-infected computers are found to be operational every day.

Further, in terms of hosting phishing Web sites, India ranks 14th, with Mumbai accounting for 30 percent of total such Web sites; followed closely by Delhi with 29 percent; and Bangalore and Chennai each 12 percent.

Again, India stands at number 18 among spam producing countries, accounting for 1 percent of all the spam that originates globally.

Singh elaborates that close to 76 percent of messages originating in India are considered spam, and that this happens to be higher than the worldwide average of 59 percent.

Interestingly, the survey reveals that 84 percent of the attacks on India originate in the US, while 68 percent of the attacks on USA originate in India.

The study has also found the rise of a new kind of malicious code named 'Bancos' in the second half of last year. 'Bancos' steals online banking usernames and passwords. And Symantec is of the view that this is one area that will dominate the Indian threat scenario in the months to come.

Comments

Popular Posts