India and Indian internet surfers are the second most popular spam originators worldwide, with 10.98% spams being sent globally from Indian IP addresses. PandaLabs, the malware analysis and detection laboratory of Panda Security said in a study. According to PandaLabs apart from India, countries like Brazil, Vietnam, Korea and US together make up the top 5 list of countries from which most spam were sent to other parts of the world during the first 2 months of 2010.

PandaLabs, which analyzed and picked close to 5 million emails as spams also came to a conclusion that these spam messages were originating from nearly 1 million different IP addresses, meaning that on average, each address was responsible for 5 spam messages.  Also according to PandaLabs, internet surfers based in major cities were the biggest spammers. According to PandaLabs, Seoul topped the list, followed by Hanoi, New Delhi, Bogota, Sao Paulo and Bangkok. According to PandaLabs, the spam messages generated are used primarily to distribute malware or sell illicit products, such as videos or photos of Brazilian girls.

According to a study by global security solutions provider, Symantec; Indian companies are more worried about cyber attacks on their IT infrastructure than caring about perceived threats from terrorism and natural disasters. The study titled ‘On the State of Enterprise Security’ conducted in January revealed that Indian enterprises suffered an average revenue loss of Rs.5.8 million due to cyber attacks by elusive hackers in just 2009 itself. Vishal Dhupar, Managing Director- Symantec India said “Security has become a main concern to Indian enterprises as cyber attacks are posing a greater threat than terrorism, natural disasters and conventional crimes”.

The study also found that 66% or 2/3^rd of the Indian enterprises surveyed faced cyber attacks from external and internal sources in 2009 causing considerable loss of confidential data and productivity. Cyber attacks are a malicious activity of the IT underworld that is used to steal sensitive information, confidential data and proprietary material for monetary gain. Since the advent of internet, hackers have tried gain access to the IT infrastructure of enterprises, spanning servers, storage and multiple devices are retrieve vital information. Vishal Dhupar said “Securing enterprises and protecting information are more challenging due to understaffing, new IT initiatives and compliance issues. A security blueprint that protects infrastructure as well as information, enforces IT policies and manages systems efficiently can increase the competitive edge of businesses in an information-driven world”. Business risk emanating from IT use is set to be a focus area for nearly every 4 out of 5 of businesses.

Another factor effecting enterprise security spanning networks, endpoints, web and data protection is availability of fewer employees to protect the IT infrastructure by securing endpoints, messaging and web environments. As such providing security is becoming more complex due to new offerings by IT enterprises such as infrastructure-as-a-service, platform-as-a-service, server and endpoint virtualisation and software-as-a-service. Enterprises need to develop and enforce IT policies and automate their compliance processes. Vishal Dhupar further said “Each cyber attack mounted has a financial impact on enterprises, besides loss of customer trust and damage to reputation. About 90% enterprises spend money to prevent such attacks and to comply with regulations, as such financial losses were on average Rs.8.4 million in 2009.”