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US Responsible For the Majority of Cyber Attacks

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the we're-number-one-we're-number-one dept.

Amber G5 writes "SecureWorks published the locations of the computers from which the greatest number of cyber attacks were attempted against its clients in 2008. The United States topped the list with 20.6 million attempted attacks originating from computers within the country, and China ran second with 7.7 million attempted attacks emanating from computers within its borders. This was followed by Brazil with over 166,987 attempted attacks, South Korea with 162,289, Poland with 153,205, Japan with 142,346, Russia with 130,572, Taiwan with 124,997, Germany with 110,493, and Canada with 107,483."

17 of 205 comments (clear)

  1. Within the U.S. by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The majority of cyber-attacks(controlled by their Chinese and Russian overlords) originate within the U.S.

    1. Re:Within the U.S. by Otter · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Also, these numbers are limited to attacks against the clients of a US-based firm, and are probably skewed accordingly.

      --
      What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
    2. Re:Within the U.S. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The majority of cyber-attacks(controlled by their Chinese and Russian overlords) originate within the U.S.

      Do you have any legitimate source to back this statement?

    3. Re:Within the U.S. by drodal · · Score: 1, Insightful

      We should fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here!

      We could also just send Sarah Palin over to Russia and ask them nicely to stop. After all, she can see it from her house, she already said she would cross a sovereign nations' borders without permission if necessary, and apparently she's ready to engage on foreign policy and relations.

      Don't mark this post funny, mark it insightful!

    4. Re:Within the U.S. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Um, any US President who wouldn't cross another country's border w/o permission if it was necessary should be dragged out back and shot.

      Or rather, shouldn't have been elected in the first place.

      Asking another country for permission is one thing ... feeling beholden to them is another.

      I would expect that most countries would be more than happy to cross the U.S. border w/o permission if they had a a compelling enough reason that overrode any repercussions. Likewise any president should feel the same way. If they didn't then they wouldn't have the interests of their country at heart (which is what they are SUPPOSED to do).

      Unfortunately the left leaning tendencies of Americans on the coasts seem to be deeply messing with the U.S.'s stability in the international arena.

      On the plus side, even though right leaning fly-over states having run an idiot the past two elections didn't help, both parties at least have credible candidates this election, which is a huge improvement from most of the recent ones.

  2. Riiiiiight by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 5, Insightful
    So

    port scan == attempted attack

    Sounds plausible.

    --
    No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
    1. Re:Riiiiiight by genner · · Score: 1, Insightful

      No, but it isn't illegal to scan port 80 on all machines on a subnet either. .

      Really...which law does that break exactly?

    2. Re:Riiiiiight by Goaway · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Read, comprehend, reply. In that order.

  3. Ummm, duh? by R2.0 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Formula:
    #zombies=#computers * X%

    I mean, isn't it that obvious?

    --
    "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
    1. Re:Ummm, duh? by whitehatlurker · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Not really - the Canadian figures should be around 3.4 million and the German around 8 million if that were the case. (This is using the Linux Counter for rough numbers of computers. Canada has 17% of the US values, Germany 40%.)

      ...

      Besides, any formula involving zombies needs to include some mention of number and location of malls, and at least passing mention of braaaaainzzz.

      --
      .. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
    2. Re:Ummm, duh? by gnick · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Is that 0.09581 almost 1% or 9.5% of our internet-hopping population?

      Neither - nothing more meaningful than "attacks per Internet user in the country". I thought that was an interesting scalar, but I'm not sure that it's useful expressed as a percentage (or perhaps not useful at all, but interesting to me). If each attack was from a unique "user", that would imply one attack on these monitored targets from each of 9.5% of the US Internet-enabled population - But that doesn't seem to be the case. So the actual percentage of "users" that attacked this target is certainly much lower, although we don't have enough information to guess how much.

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
  4. redirection by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Of course, hackers always use their home ip, and never bounce off of compromised clients in other countries.

  5. Re:More in US than Reported by Missing_dc · · Score: 4, Insightful

    On the flip side of that would be the large # of botnets that are foreignly controlled, which is where most of TFA's attacks probably originated.

    Also take into account the # of computers running unattended (and likely infected)in the US vs the rest of the world.

    So, do we try to cut off the monster's hands or its head?

    --
    How amazed would you be to suddenly find that you just forgot what I wrote and you needed to reread my post.... again.
  6. Re:Damn Windows Lusers! by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I run Windows XP under VirtualBox on an Ubuntu Linux machine that is connected 24x7. What does that make me?

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    My blog
  7. Soooo.... by Sta7ic · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...can we lump the MediaSentry/SafeNet "investigations" in the numbers for these attacks?

  8. Murder vs. Littering by nick_davison · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You'll notice pretty much any survey of crime shows:

    Violent Crimes per 100,000
    Serious Sexual Assaults per 100,000
    Murders per 100,000
    etc.

    They don't just say, "Crimes" because...

    Any smart person would choose somewhere with a billion people and 10,000 crimes over a million people with 1,000 crimes. That's why per capita is critical.

    Any smart person would also likely choose somewhere with 10,000 littering offences and 1 murder over somewhere with 1000 murders.

    It only takes two massive cyber attacks against the entire infrastructure of Georgia and Estonia to make Russia (assuming you don't accept their denials) far more offensive on a global scale than a million spam botnets.

    Now which is worse? The country that spams millions of times or the country that cripples the infrastructure of any small nation that dares oppose it? Still care about pure numbers without caring what the numbers actually record?

    I'm not claiming the U.S.'s vast numbers of offenses are purely the equivalent of littering, nor that they never do anything worse... Simply that big but meaningless because it's not clarified number A vs. big but meaningless because it's not clarified number B is still... meaningless.

  9. Re:Is Sarah Palin a MILF? by Oktober+Sunset · · Score: 1, Insightful

    In her case it stands for Maniacal Inbred Lying Fucktard.

    --
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