If you enjoyed the late Tom Clancy's techo-thriller Threat Vector, you may be thinking that China is the world's worst nation for internet hacking. Think again.
China has a reputation as the hacker capital of the world, but a new report shows the bulk of global cyber-attack activity has recently come from its smaller neighbour, Indonesia.
38% of the world's cyber attacks originated in Indonesia during the second quarter of 2013, up from 21% in the first quarter. This spike knocked China off
the hacking pedestal, with Big Red accounting for 33% of attacks, down from 34%. The amount of hacking originating in US (although at No.3), is a piddly 6.9% of cyber-attack traffic, a decrease from 8.3%. Indonesia and China alone accounted for more than half of all global cyber-attack activity during the quarter!
While it may seem like Indonesia came out of nowhere to take the lead (last year it accounted for less than 1% of cyber crimes), hackers may be taking advantage of its increase in connection and weakening IT structure. The country's average internet connection speed increased 125% from the same time last year. That, coupled with the fact the country isn't spending lots on its infrastructure, may make the country a haven for cybercriminals.
Last Jan., hacker group Anonymous Indonesia claimed responsibility for defacing 12 government websites. In April, the country's defence minister announced it was building a Cyber Defence Centre to combat hackers. Microsoft also felt the supposed wrath of Indonesian criminals (among others) when it put the lid on a cyber-crime operation in June.
One thing to keep in mind: the IP address assigned to a particular country may not be the nation where the attacker resides. So someone from China with an IP address associated with them, may actually be committing cyber attacks in, say, France, while sitting anonymously in Turkey...!
China has a reputation as the hacker capital of the world, but a new report shows the bulk of global cyber-attack activity has recently come from its smaller neighbour, Indonesia.
38% of the world's cyber attacks originated in Indonesia during the second quarter of 2013, up from 21% in the first quarter. This spike knocked China off
the hacking pedestal, with Big Red accounting for 33% of attacks, down from 34%. The amount of hacking originating in US (although at No.3), is a piddly 6.9% of cyber-attack traffic, a decrease from 8.3%. Indonesia and China alone accounted for more than half of all global cyber-attack activity during the quarter!While it may seem like Indonesia came out of nowhere to take the lead (last year it accounted for less than 1% of cyber crimes), hackers may be taking advantage of its increase in connection and weakening IT structure. The country's average internet connection speed increased 125% from the same time last year. That, coupled with the fact the country isn't spending lots on its infrastructure, may make the country a haven for cybercriminals.
Last Jan., hacker group Anonymous Indonesia claimed responsibility for defacing 12 government websites. In April, the country's defence minister announced it was building a Cyber Defence Centre to combat hackers. Microsoft also felt the supposed wrath of Indonesian criminals (among others) when it put the lid on a cyber-crime operation in June.
One thing to keep in mind: the IP address assigned to a particular country may not be the nation where the attacker resides. So someone from China with an IP address associated with them, may actually be committing cyber attacks in, say, France, while sitting anonymously in Turkey...!
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