With Broadband Use on the Rise, China Becomes Top Cyberthreat – CQ Homeland Security
China surpassed the United States last year as the top country of origin for cyber-attacks targeting governments around the world, according to a new Symantec report released Tuesday.
In 2008, 22 percent of all attacks on the government sector originated in China, up from 8 percent in 2007 when China placed fourth behind the United States, Spain and France.
According to Symantec’s Government Internet Security Threat Report, the percentage of attacks against the government sector originating in China in 2008 was greater than the percentage of Internet-wide attacks from the country, which accounted for 13 percent of the total.
Zulfikar Ramzan, a technical director at Symantec, said the increased percentage of cyber-attacks from China targeting the government sector could be attributed to several trends, but the biggest one is the amount of broadband being used in China.
