Cyber criminals moving operations to Canada

Cyber criminals are on the move again and, this time, Canada is the prime target. IP addresses in China and Eastern Europe are highly scrutinized and undergoing intense evaluation so attackers are on a quest to move their networks to countries that have better cyber reputations, according to Websense.

Here’s a heat map showing physical locations of Canadian servers hosting malicious content (May 2011):

Canada saw a huge increase in the number of servers hosting phishing sites, jumping 319 percent in the last year.

This tremendous increase over the last 12 months is second only to Egypt in terms of the growth of sites hosting crime ware. Below is the breakdown.

Top 10 countries that host phishing sites, 2011 Jan-May
1. US
2. Canada
3. Egypt
4. Germany
5. UK

Cyber criminals are moving their command and control centers to safer grounds. In the past eight months, Canada saw a 53 percent increase in bot networks. Canada is the only country that showed an increase in bot networks over the last eight months, when compared to the countries above.

In 2010 Canada was #13 in the world for hosting cyber crime, and in 2011 Canada jumped to #6! Below is the breakdown.

Top 10 Countries that host cyber crime, 2011 Jan-May
1. US
2. France
3. Russia
4. Germany
5. China
6. Canada
7. Netherlands
8. South Korea
9. Romania
10. UK

“More malicious content is being hosted in Canada than ever before,” said Patrik Runald, senior manager of Security Research, Websense. “Cyber criminals are taking advantage of Canada’s clean cyber reputation, and moving shop. We’re seeing all time highs for both hosted phishing sites and bot networks. It is important for Canadian citizens to be extra vigilant on the Internet, taking extra precautions when clicking on links.”