India has achieved tremendous growth in the use of cellular telephones, computers, smart phones, and social networks in the recent times. Along with it, the vulnerability to cybercrime is also increasing in the country. India is found to occupy the second place after the US in cybercrime activities.
Symantec, in its Internet Security Threat report, stated that about 35 per cent of the spam and 11 percent of phishing hosts in the Asia-Pacific-Japan region originated in India. This indicates the growing size of the underground industry here. About half of the malcodes in the country are worm and 33% are viruses.
Even mobiles have become target for cyber-attacks. The vulnerabilities on mobile platforms are increased by 42% in 2010 in India. About 163 vulnerabilities that could be used by cyber attackers were documented by the company during 2010. The company also reported that there was a 92% increase in web-based attacks in the previous year. Also, the virus and malware attacks have become common in social networks and instant messages.
In addition to the rise in frequency of the cyber-attacks, there was an increase in sophistication of targeted attacks on business infrastructure. India was in the third place, after Iran and Indonesia, in having the Stuxnet infections. This high rate is because of the large number of computer users in the country relying on removable media for copying data. These attacks have the ability to leap the air gap. They can reach the PCs which are not connected to the Internet through USB drives. It was therefore suggested that the Indian companies have to be vigilant because almost all the companies are managed by the computers these days.