China, Indonesia lead sources of online attacks: Study

Report by security firm Akamai says nearly 68 per cent of cyber attacks originated in the Asia Pacific/Oceania region.

WASHINGTON: China and Indonesia headed the list of 177 countries named as sources of Internet attacks, a security survey said Tuesday.

The survey from US security firm Akamai found China remained at the top of the list in the first quarter of 2013, but its share of all attacks dropped to 34 per cent from 41 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2012.

"This decline is likely related to Indonesia making a sudden appearance in the second place slot," said Akamai's Bill Brenner, noting that Indonesia's share of cyber attacks surged to 21 per cent from just 0.7 per cent in the prior quarter.

The United States was the third largest source, but its share dropped to 8.3 per cent from 10 per cent earlier.

The next largest sources of cyber attacks were Turkey (4.5 per cent), Russia (2.7 per cent), India (2.6 per cent), Taiwan (2.5 per cent), Brazil (2.2 per cent), Romania (2.0 per cent) and Hong Kong (1.6 per cent).

"We find that nearly 68 per cent originated in the Asia Pacific/Oceania region, up from 56 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2012, likely due to the massive increase seen in Indonesia," Brenner said.

"Europe accounted for just under 19 per cent, while North and South America originated just over 13 per cent combined."

Akamai also noted a four percent increase in the global average connection speed -- to 3.1 megabits per second.

South Korea had the highest average connection speed at 14.2 Mbps and remained the country with the highest level of "high broadband" adoption, growing to 50 per cent, the report said.

The report estimated more than 733 million unique Internet addresses from 243 countries or regions connected to the Akamai platform, an increase of 3.1 per cent over the previous quarter and 10 per cent year over year.

Since a single IP address can represent multiple individuals in some cases, Akamai estimated the total number of unique Web users connecting to its platform during the quarter to be well over one billion.