Malaysia Responsible for Most E-Mail-Borne Viruses in Asia

According to Symantec's latest MessageLabs Intelligence Report, Malaysia was the top Asian country in April 2010 with respect to viruses spread through e-mails.

Here, the rate at which e-mail-borne viruses were pushed in the total volume of e-mail messages from recent and earlier unfamiliar bad sources stood at 1 out of 406.9 messages during April 2010. Additionally, the proportion of spam mails with respect to total e-mail messages flowing from recent and earlier unfamiliar bad sources accounted for 87.7%.

Conversely, the report states, the worldwide percentage of spam with respect to total e-mail dropped 0.8% from March 2010 to 89.9%. Further, 28.9% of malware through e-mail carried web-links pointing to harmful sites, demonstrating a rise of 12.1 percentage points.

Also, according to the report, the Malaysian industry sector that had the highest amount of spam at 94.9% continued to be the Engineering sector. And the sector most targeted with malware continued to be the Public Sector, with one in 99.1 e-mails detected as malicious.

Said Symantec's security researchers regarding the high rate of malevolent activities in Malaysia that cybercrimes pertaining to financial fraud account for the majority of crimes in the country. While it's quite docile, Malaysia, however, isn't too well-prepared in averting these kinds of crimes.

Observes Tommy Seah, Honorary Group Chairperson of International Cybercrime and Forensics Examiner Group of Companies, the most commonly committed financial crimes in Malaysia include financial statement embezzlements, asset misappropriations and procurement frauds. The New New Internet published this on April 15, 2010.

A general reason behind carrying out economic crimes comprises people's desire for a high standard of living. When that is not achieved legally, they look for illicit ways of acquiring the things they desire, Seah added.

Economic crimes consist of bribery and corruption, fraud, money laundering, identity theft, financial and accounting fraud, and cybercrime.

In conclusion, the specialists stated that as Malaysia witnesses a rapidly expanding online community, exposures to different kinds of cybercrime is also increasing. By 2009-end, the number of Internet users in Malaysia was over 16 Million, representing 65% of its total population. Incidentally, this percentage is rapidly rising, the specialists added.

Related article: Mules Arrested for Involvement in phishing Attacks on ABN AMRO

» SPAMfighter News - 5/14/2010