IP: Israel, U.S. among top sources of cyber attacks, study finds

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/tech/040898.htm

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - More cyber attacks originate in the United States 
than in any other country, but the number of attacks that appear to come 
from Israel is nearly double that of any other nation based on number of 
Internet users, according to a study released Monday.

High-tech, financial services, media/entertainment and power and energy 
companies showed the highest intensity of attacks per company, each 
averaging more than 700 attacks per company over the six-month period.

On a percentage basis, most of the attacks were relatively benign in nature.

But the number of severe attacks was still substantial, with critical and 
emergency-level events detected on 43 percent of the client networks, the 
study found.

``In fact, our findings strongly suggest that once companies connect their 
systems to the Internet, they are virtually guaranteed to suffer some form 
of attack,'' the report said.

``Israel is a country with pretty sophisticated warfare capabilities,'' 
that spread through the relatively computer-literate general population, 
said Amit Yoran, president and chief executive of Alexandria, 
Virginia-based Riptech.

For the study, Riptech investigated more than 128,000 cyber attacks found 
in the analysis of 5.5 billion log entries and alerts on its customer's 
networks between July and December.

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