US Continues to be Largest Source of Online Attacks - Webroot

A fresh report of security company Webroot and threat intelligence reveals that contrary to popular belief, maximum cyber attacks on companies in U.S. originate from inside the country than outside it.

It is incredible that on an average, around 12 million malicious IP addresses are there on the Internet on any given day and 85,000 new addresses are being launched daily. While IP addresses originate from all over the globe but more than 30% originate from U.S. followed by China with 23% and Russia with 10%.

Darkreading.com published news on 24th April, 2015 quoting Mike Malloy, Executive Vice President of products and strategy at Webroot, as saying "United States is the leading source of attacks in terms of attacking victims and in terms of attackers also."

He said that several malicious URLs are found in the U.S. because attackers of malicious are aware of the fact that URLs in high-risk countries are automatically blocked by geo-filtering services.

Webroot research also reveals that Internet users are under growing siege from different malware threats which is somewhat less surprising.

According to a report, unfortunately, on an average there are almost 900 phishing attempts identified per financial institution but more than 9,000 attempts have been identified per technology company. Phishing sites impersonate top five technology companies i.e. Apple, Yahoo, Google, Dropbox and Facebook. The report reveals that as a country, US hosts maximum phishing sites with more than 75% being within its borders.

Itproportal.com published a report on 24th April, 2015 quoting Hal Lonas, Chief Technology Officer of Webroot, as saying "We have seen a constant growth in the quantity of malicious URLs, malware and mobile applications and IP addresses which are used to make cybercriminals potent to steal data, disturb services or cause other damages. The trend does not slow down as more and more breaches happening at big retailers, financial organisations and technical organisations along with many other smaller breaches during 2014."

Therefore, the report advises home users and companies to be more vigilant about phishing attacks which are designed to infect users with malware or steal credentials of users.

» SPAMfighter News - 5/4/2015