11 countries with most hackers and cyber criminals lose billions of dollars every year through online criminal activities. Online frauds, data theft, phishing sites and spam emails are just some of the activities that have, according to some estimates, cost the global economy staggering $445 billion. In 2012, the United States lost $1.2 billion on credit card schemes alone. Cyber criminal has become so rampant that loses from it have reached 0.8% of global GDP. That is almost as much as drug trafficking, estimated at 0.9%. Identity theft is also one of the activities that causes not just financial losses, but considerable amount of grief to those affected, as you can see in the list of 11 countries with the highest rates of identity theft in the world.
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There are two main factors that make cyber criminals so successful and numerous. The first is the relatively low risk involved. Unlike other criminal activities, cyber criminals rarely, if ever, face a violent situation. It is highly unlikely that a hacker will be shot while performing the criminal activity. Also, due to an inherent characteristic of Internet traffic, the risk of getting caught is significantly lower than with traditional criminal. This is especially true for poorer countries on our list, unable to afford specialized high-tech police units to deal with hackers.
The other incentive is that hackers don’t need to invest in expensive equipment in order to engage in cyber criminal. Contrary to what Hollywood movies are telling us, most of the time an ordinary laptop and Internet connections are all that they need. This makes cyber criminal one of activities with the best ROI rate in the world.
When attempting to steal money or data, hackers usually go down one of two alleys, either social engineering or exploiting the vulnerabilities in the system. The first one exploits the human factor, which is often the weakest link in any security system. The other tries to take advantage of bad programming or implementation, by looking for holes left in the code. Both are equally dangerous and Kevin Mitnick, one of the world’s first hackers, has explained in his books that the best hackers often combine both methods.
One country is suspiciously absent from our list of 11 countries with most hackers and cyber criminals. North Korea doesn’t allow Internet connection to its citizens and the access to the web is limited to government agencies. A substantial number of cyber-attacks origins in North Korea, but since it is impossible to get any data on the matter, we omitted it from this article.
11. India
We start our list with India, who has only appeared recently on the map of countries with the most cyber criminals. As the country’s Internet infrastructure is improving rapidly, we expect India to soon climb the ladders much higher.
10. Poland
Just like India, Poland is quickly expanding its broadband network to meet EU standards. This will lead to increased number of cyber criminals.
9. Turkey
Turkey is quickly becoming one of the largest spam centers of the world.
8. France
High percentage of online banking users is making France a tempting target for hackers.
7. Italy
Due to lax regulation and enforcement, Italy has become a mecca for phishing sites targeting banks and their customers.
6. Spain
Number 6 on our list of 11 countries with most hackers and cyber criminals is Spain, with 4% share of world’s malicious computer activity.
5. Brazil
Fast Internet connection and poor standard of living are providing means and motive for Brazilian cyber criminals.
4. UK
One of the largest banking centers in the world, the United Kingdom is facing serious challenges in its attempts to curb fraudulent online activities.
3. Germany
Cheap servers in Germany are making this country one of the favorites for cyber criminals to host spam email bots and fraudulent click sites.
2. China
High percentage of pirated software have made China the country with the biggest number of bot controlled machines in the world, reaching its height in 2007, with 19% of all network computers being infected.
1. United States of America
With 23% of all malicious software activities originating from the United States, it takes the number one spot on the list of 11 countries with most hackers and cyber criminals. An average data breach in 2008 cost was estimated to $6.7 million. To be fair, a large part of cyber-attacks in the US has originated from foreign countries, since it is the most lucrative target for cyber criminals in the world.
