Online PCs Safer in India than in China: Study

A study reveals that computers used in government sectors such as aviation and healthcare in India are less prone to Internet viruses than those in China, the second-largest broadband user in the world after the US.

China has emerged as the second-largest nation in terms of the number of computers with multiple infections in government and critical infrastructure sectors, according to a study by US-based Internet security software maker Symantec Corp. The high number of attacks originating in China was due to the rapid growth of broadband.

India is ranked sixth in the world for computers with multiple infections mentioned in the Government Internet Security Threat Report. The US tops the list.

Aerospace, telecom, healthcare, financial services, and agriculture were included among critical infrastructure sectors by the study. Telecom accounted for 90 per cent of all malicious activity originating from critical infrastructure sectors, and hacking was responsible for 73 per cent of the identities exposed.

China was among the top three countries in five metrics – malicious activity, target of denial-of-service (DoS) attacks, bot-infected computers, origin of attacks, and computers with multiple infections.

The report pointed out that the Rontokbro worm was more prevalent in India though the infected email was of Indonesian origin. "Rontokbro sends email messages to all the addresses it gathers from files on a compromised computer. It stands to reason that this worm was sent to many Indian users from business contacts in Indonesia," the report said. Rontokbro is one of the top ten malicious code samples resulting in potential infections in the EMEA region.

The US accounted for 30 per cent of all malicious activity while Israel had the highest malicious activity per Internet user. China, which accounts for 13 per cent internet users across the world, had the highest number of bot-infected computers – 29 per cent of the worldwide total.

The percentage of bot-infected computers in China had come down in the first half of 2007, compared with the same period a year ago, indicating a rise in security awareness among Internet users there.

The report noted that the higher attack origins in the US and China indicated that computer crime laws were not effectively deterring computer criminals and attackers.