In 2011 Ukraine climbed to seventh in terms of spam-zombies (computer networks spreading spam), Symantec's information security consultant for Russia and CIS member states, Oleksandr Suiazov, said at a press conference in Kyiv on Friday.
During the event he presented the annual report on threats to Internet security drawn up by Symantec, a U.S. company.
According to the report, Ukraine for the first time became one of the top ten countries with biggest number of spam-zombie, phishing and network attacks, Suiazov said.
In general, according to him, in one year Ukraine rose from the 31st to the 23rd place in the world in terms of the largest number of Internet threats.
Kyiv is the leader of five Ukrainian cities in terms of the amount of harmful software. After the capital come Lviv, Odesa, Makiyivka and Donetsk.
According to Symantec experts, the accessibility of the tools to attack on-line networks caused an increase in the amount of harmful software.
"Earlier, in order to attack [an on-line network] about $100,000 was needed. Now it’s possible to do it for only $200," the Symantec consultant said.
This fact also explains the increase in the number of attacks on small and middle-sized businesses, while previously predominantly big companies and state organizations were targeted. In particular, a fifth of all attacks were committed on the servers of companies with around 250 employees.
According to the specialists of the antiviral company, the most efficient means for spreading harmful software is through Web sites. The largest numbers of viruses are spread via religious Web sites. The experts say that often these sites are made unprofessionally and IT-security pays little or no attention to them.
Symantec said that the spreading of viruses via social networks and the increase in the amount of harmful software for mobile devices were new tendencies in thelast year.
According to the company’s forecasts, in 2012 computers with the MacOS (Apple) operating system will become subject to attack, as their number has started to grow rapidly.
Symantec is one of the world leaders in the provision of IT-security software.
