Cyber attacks: India is the most 'peaceful' nation

BANGALORE, INDIA: SecureWorks announced the findings of a research study that analyzed where the greatest number of attempted cyber attacks were launching from across the globe at its 2,800 clients.

India won the study by having the lowest number of attempted cyber attacks originating from computers within its borders with only 52 attacks per thousand PCs.

The Netherlands ended in second place with 57 attacks per thousand PCs, narrowly beating Germany and Brazil who came in third and fourth place respectively, said the study. France came fifth 106 attacks, while the UK came sixth with 107 attacks per 1000 PCs, more than double the level of 52 attacks per 1000 PCs in India.

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Jon Ramsey, SecureWorks' chief technology officer, said that the statistics show that a substantial number of vulnerable computers in countries worldwide have been compromised and are being used as bots to launch cyber attacks.

“Overall, the study shows that not only are organizations and individuals putting themselves at risk by not securing them, but they are actually providing cyber criminals with a platform to compromise other computers,” he said.

“The reasons for the difference in number of attempted attacks per country could comprise many things - this ranges from the overall Internet speeds in a country and how proactive the ISPs are in protecting their clients to general user education on security. The ratio of Windows, Mac and Linux users in a country will also make a big difference,” he added.

According to the study, the United States is responsible for the largest number of attempted cyber attacks in the last six months, with a total of 1,660 attempted attacks per thousand computers.

According to SecureWorks, there are a variety of techniques that can be introduced to help secure systems and prevent attacks. A multi-layered solution provides compensating controls that can help reduce data loss.

Traditional methods such as firewalls and anti-virus software should be combined with intrusion prevention services, access control, data encryption, tokenization, vulnerability scans, network segmentation and log monitoring to perform a rich analysis of networks and effectively protect systems, it said.