A new study from SecureWorks indicates that the United States now leads, geographically speaking, as the host for cyber attacks. This means that the United States is hosting computers that are responsible for the most attacks, regardless of who is doing the attacking.

Host computers responsible for cyber attacks may have been compromised and are being used as bots, or they may originate from cyber criminals within the U.S. Hunter King, security researcher for SecureWorks, warns that not only are “organizations and personal computer users… putting their computers and networks at risk by not security them, but they are actually providing these cyber criminals with a platform from which to compromise other computers.”

Attempted cyber attacks by originating country:

• United States - 20.6 million
• China - 7.7 million
• Brazil- 166,987
• South Korea - 162,289
• Poland - 153,205
• Japan - 142,346
• Russia - 130,572
• Taiwan - 124,997
• Germany - 110,493
• Canada - 107,483

The figures for this study were based upon threats intercepted on behalf of its customers during the first 9 months of 2008. The report, as described here, outlines how Chinese hackers are taking control of unprotected networks, versus just using distributed bots.

Via security watch ; image: istockphoto