World’s riskiest places to Web surf revealed

Gordon Peters
Thursday, 26 August 2010 02:38

IT Industry - Market

Where in the world are you most likely to be hit by a malicious computer attack or virus? Well, according to AVG it seems that it’s the Caucasus region, with web surfers in Turkey, Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan all being the most likely to face threats while online.

Closer to home, Australia is the 37th riskiest country with a 1 in 75 attack ratio and New Zealand the 63rd riskiest (1 in 103).

According to AVG, some of the world’s safest surfers can be found in Japan and Taiwan, while seven of the 10 safest countries in which to surf the Internet are in Africa. “As a continent, South America was ‘safest’, and North America ‘riskiest’,” AVG reports, while finding that globally your chances of being attacked while online on any given day are 1 in 73.

By compiling data for 144 countries - including Australia and New Zealand - involving 127 million PCs, AVG says it was able to look at the incidence of security threats that its software had to deal with in the last week of Jul, and from these figures, it was able to average out the likelihood of the average web user facing a web security attack.

AVG also found that:

•    Turkey leads the league table for the world’s riskiest web surfers, with its security software having to step in to protect one in 10 using the Internet. Web users in Russia (1 in 14 were hit), Armenia (1 in 24), and Azerbaijan (1 in 39) also suffer high rates of attacks.

•    Other areas where web surfers are disproportionately at risk include Bangladesh (1 in 41), Pakistan (1 in 48) and in SE Asia, Vietnam and Laos (where the chances of facing an attack are both 1 in 42).

•    The US is at number nine when it comes to the riskiest places to go online (1 in 48), UK is ranked 31st (1 in 63), while German web surfers come in at number 41 (1 in 83).

•    However, other major developed nations fared much better with web surfers steering clear of suspicious websites. Though Sierra Leone (1 in 692) and Niger (1 in 442) were ‘safer’, and AVG says that if you look at broadband penetration in these countries as well as overall Internet use, surfing the web in Japan (1 in 404 attacked) “arguably offers the safest experience.

•    Meanwhile Taiwan (1 in 248 attacked), Argentina (1 in 241 attacked), and France (1 in 224 attacked) all came in the top 20 list of the world’s safest surfers.

Analysing the data by continent, AVG says your chances of getting attacked while surfing the web in North America are 1 in 51. In Europe it is 1 in 72, while in Asia (including Asia Pacific) it is 1 in 102. The safest continents are Africa (1 in 108), and by a long way South America (1 in 164).

While African countries make up seven of the top 10 ‘safe surfing’ list, it’s noteworthy, says AVG, that the chances of being attacked in all South American countries is more than 1 in 100, while the ‘riskiest’ country in South America was Peru at 1 in 131, which globally still only ranks 78th out of 142 countries.

According to AVG spokesperson, Roger Thomson, the research tells a lot about the typical behaviour of web surfers worldwide. “Internet users in Turkey, Russia and some Central Asian countries, the Caucasus, South-east Asian and Indian sub-continent states show disproportionally higher rates of being attacked than the global average of 1 in 73.

However, in a cautionary note for travellers, Thomson says the research should also serve as a wake-up call to people going abroad. “Very often you may access your files on a computer that doesn’t belong to you, or you may access a shared network - neither of which incidentally are things we would ever recommend.

“In those cases, we would urge that web users exercise caution, not only when it comes to going online in our top 50 risk list, but in general.”