Taiwan was ranked seventh on a list of 177 countries and regions identified as sources of Internet attacks, according to a survey released on Tuesday by a US-based security firm.
The State of the Internet Report survey from Akamai Technologies ranked Taiwan seventh on the list for the first quarter of the year, since the country accounted for 2.5 percent of all cyberattacks worldwide.
Asked about the results of the survey, Hsiao Hsiu-chin (蕭秀琴), director of the Executive Yuan’s Office of Information and Communication Security, said government agencies have taken steps to strengthen information security, but the private sector needs to do more. Cyberattacks include active attacks and attacks manipulated by others, Hsiao said, adding that Taiwan itself is a target of online attacks.
It is easy to be manipulated by others or to become a stepping stone for hackers planning to initiate attacks, she said.
In the survey, China remained at the top of the list, but its share of all attacks dropped to 34 percent from 41 percent in the fourth quarter of last year. China was followed by Indonesia, whose share of cyberattacks surged to 21 percent from just 0.7 percent in the prior quarter. The third-largest source was the US, but its share dropped to 8.3 percent from 10 percent earlier. The others among the top 10 sources of cyberattacks were Turkey (4.5 percent), Russia (2.7 percent), India (2.6 percent), Brazil (2.2 percent), Romania (2.0 percent) and Hong Kong (1.6 percent).
Taiwan had also ranked seventh in the previous survey for the fourth quarter of last year, making up 3.7 percent of total online attacks.
Based in Massachusetts, Akamai is a cloud platform for helping enterprises provide secure, high-performing user experiences.
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