Wealthiest nations are most susceptible to cyber attack

Crime has found a new medium, the Internet, and cyber attacks have become one of the worse nuisances to the civilized world with millions of connected devices exposed and viewable on the internet. And according to a study conducted by security firm Rapid7, the wealthiest of nations, including Australia and the UK, are the most vulnerable.

The reason behind it is simple. These countries unsecured systems connected to the internet. The study states many Western nations are putting competitiveness and business ahead of security, and that will have "dire consequences" for some of the world's largest economies. Belgium topped the rankings as the most exposed country on the internet. Australia ranked fourth on the most vulnerable list, followed by China at fifth, France at 13th, the US at 14th, while Russia and UK came at 19th and 23rd respectively.

The study found that there were over 11 million systems with direct access to relational databases, and about 4.7 million networked systems were categorized as the most commonly attacked port.

"The ongoing widespread use of a decades-old, outdated and unsecured networking protocol is the culprit. Scans show that there are over 14 million devices still using outdated, insecure, plaintext Telnet for remotely accessing files and servers," Tod Beardsley senior security research manager at Rapid7, who co-authored the report, said.

Elaborating on the dismal online infrastructure of some countries and enterprises, the study notes that "Despite calls from... virtually every security company and security advocacy organization on Earth, compulsory encryption is not a default, standard feature in internet protocol design. Cleartext protocols 'just work,' and security concerns are doggedly secondary."