India reported most number of social media scams in 2015

22 Apr 2016

1

India has the most number of social media scams, and with almost 16 per cent of all cyberattacks through social media happening in India, every sixth of these scams impacted an Indian in 2015. India in fact is not only a top destination, but also a source for cyberattacks.

The Internet Security Threat Report 2015, which analysed the global cyber threat activities throughout the year has reported the findings. The Global Intelligence Network (GIN) of the security firm Symantec Corporation, collected the data for the report.

The report, revealed that there was an observed trend this year of more breaches of software security, use of encryption to keep people's personal data hostage, and the emergence of tech support scam.

"It is ironic that encryption that was devised as a method of securing important data is being used as a weapon by cybercriminals. Also, these criminals are now making people call them instead of calling people themselves.

"The increase in number of targeted attacks, which have increased by 55 per cent from 2012 and 2015, indicates that the criminals know much more about individuals now," said Tarun Kaura, Symantec's director of Solution Product Management for the Asia Pacific Japan region, Times of India reported.

Meanwhile, India which was, at one time, considered the spam capital of the world, had seen a steady decrease in the amount of spam originating from within its borders.

In 2014, India ranked the 6th biggest source of spam, but now now ranks 18th as a source of spam. However, its rank as the third top source of overall malicious activity including spam remained unchanged.

In 2015, India witnessed a 156 per cent rise in the percentage of social media scams making it the most targeted country in Asia and second in the world.

A whopping 94 per cent of these scams had been spread by manual sharing, proving India's burgeoning social media population remained a favoured target of scammers.

Business History Videos

History of hovercraft Part 3...

Today I shall talk a bit more about the military plans for ...

By Kiron Kasbekar | Presenter: Kiron Kasbekar

History of hovercraft Part 2...

In this episode of our history of hovercraft, we shall exam...

By Kiron Kasbekar | Presenter: Kiron Kasbekar

History of Hovercraft Part 1...

If you’ve been a James Bond movie fan, you may recall seein...

By Kiron Kasbekar | Presenter: Kiron Kasbekar

History of Trams in India | ...

The video I am presenting to you is based on a script writt...

By Aniket Gupta | Presenter: Sheetal Gaikwad

view more