Saudi Arabia: Number of cyber-attacks on the rise

Riyadh, Asharq Al-Awsat – A report issued yesterday ranked Saudi Arabia as the second most targeted country in the Middle East by online attacks.  The report ranked Egypt as the most targeted country in the Middle East region, while the UAE was in third place.

This information was revealed in a technical report issued in Saudi Arabia which revealed that the country is one of the most targeted countries in the world by spam mail, and that approximately 79.5 percent of emails in Saudi Arabia are spam.  The report ranked Saudi Arabia as the 32nd most targeted country in the world by online attacks in 2011, whilst the country was ranked 24 in 2010.

For his part, General Manager of “Symantec” Saudi Arabia Samer Sidani warned that online criminal specialists were increasingly targeting the Middle East – including Saudi Arabia – for its rapid economic growth and rising number of internet users.  He added that criminals such as this are also targeting mobile devices, particularly smartphones, in order to steal sensitive data.

The “Symantec Internet Security Threat Report” for 2011, also showed that Symantec blocked a total of over 5.5 billion malware attacks in 2011, an 81 percent increase over 2010.  The report revealed that web based attacks had increased by 36 percent, with over 4,500 new attacks taking place each day, whilst 403 million new variants of malware were creased in 2011, a 41 percent increase over 2010.  The report also revealed that spammers had targeted the Arab Spring, particularly the unrest in Egypt and Libya, with 419 scams and targeted attacks.