The Hindu Business Line : `Net security threat impact will rise'

The impact of Internet security threats will rise in India with the rising broadband penetration in the country, according to the latest security threat report released by Symantec Corp.

Releasing the report in Bangalore on Thursday, Mr Vishal Dhupar, Managing Director, Symantec India, said: "the old threats persist as newer threats continue to emerge and that the level of attacks were getting modular, sophisticated and aimed at financial gain."

The Symantec report, based on responses from its customers, said it has found increasing evidence of data leakage and financial driven crimes in the country which affect the corporates. "There are clear signs of online underground economy for fraud and that India is a part of the fraud food chain," said Mr Prabhat Kumar Singh, director of security response labs at Symantec.

Bot-infected PCs

Mumbai had the highest number of bot-infected computers in India, accounting for 38 per cent of the total, followed by Delhi (25 per cent), Bangalore (15 per cent) and Chennai (10 per cent).

A `bot' is a type of malware, which allows an attacker to gain complete control over the affected computer. Attackers after accessing bot-affected PCs can activate them to help execute DoS (denial-of-service) attacks against Web sites, host phishing attack Web sites or send out thousands of spam e-mail messages.

The report said India is ranked 14 worldwide in hosting phishing Web sites. Mumbai hosted 30 per cent of the total phishing sites in India, Delhi 29 per cent, and Bangalore and Chennai accounted for 12 per cent each of the total sites.