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Germany ranks highest for Internet hacking

Posted On: Mar. 20, 2007 12:00 AM CST

CUPERTINO, California—Germany ranks highest among European countries in Internet hacking activity, but falls well below the United States and slightly behind China, a recently released report says.

Symantec Corp.'s semiannual Internet Security Threat Report, released May 19, said hackers using German networks were responsible for 7% of the "overall malicious activity" on the Internet in the period from July 1, 2006 until the end of last year.

That percentage was below the 31% attributed to hackers in the United States and 10% in China, the report noted.

This is the first time that Cupertino, Calif.-based Symantec has identified in its report countries with the highest amount of malicious activity.

The report also noted that malicious "trojan" codes made up 45% of the top 50 malicious code samples causing Internet problems in the six-month period, which Symantec says is an indication that attackers increasingly are shifting from mass-mailing "worms" to the trojan codes.

The report is available at www.symantec.com.