China and US Tops in Malware Storage Sites?

A new report from Cyveillance suggests that 60 percent of all malware binary storage sites are hosted in the China or the United States. Perhaps not so coincidentally, the countries represent the largest online populations in the world.

The report also suggests that "63 percent of the sites being used to attract and distribute malware are hosted in the United States. The United States also hosts over 50 percent of the world’s malware drop sites, which collect information from infected computers that use keyloggers, screen scrapers and other approaches to passively harvest sensitive personal information."

"Through comprehensive Internet monitoring, our cyber intelligence analysts have seen a significant quarter over quarter increase in malicious online risks targeting U.S. citizens," said Panos Anastassiadis, CEO of Cyveillance. "As Internet utilization rates continue to rise, the risks to organizations and consumers for data and identity theft grow exponentially. Understanding where these threats are coming from and who they are most likely to target goes a long way in proactively neutralizing these risks."

Cyveillance thinks that US-based Web surfers are more prone to various attacks than people living in other countries.

The company said that its figures are based on "actual measurements" and are not projections based on sample data. The report data was collected between April 1, 2007 and June 30, 2007 and the company claims that it identifies over 100,000 new sites, 80 million blogs, and 90,000 message boards every day.

Interested parties can obtain a copy of the Cyveillance's Online Financial Fraud and Identity Theft Report in PDF format at the company's Web site.