Taiwan takes top spot from Myanmar as malicious internet traffic source

Taiwan, Myanmar, and the US held the top three spots on Akamai’s list of sources of malicious internet traffic in the second quarter of 2011, accounting for 27% of observed malicious traffic combined.

Taiwan jumped to first, displacing Myanmar, which held the top spot in the first quarter of this year. That was the first time Myanmar had appeared on the Akamai top 10 list of malicious internet traffic originators.

Akamai measures malicious internet traffic based on what it terms “attack traffic.” The company maintains a distributed set of agents deployed across the internet that monitor attack traffic. Based on the data collected by these agents, Akamai identifies the top countries from which attack traffic originates, as well as the top ports targeted by these attacks. Rounding out the top 10 attack traffic sources were China, Russia, Indonesia, Brazil, India, Egypt, and Romania, according to the Akamai’s 'State of the Internet Report for the second quarter of 2011'. Egypt returned to the top 10 list for attack traffic after last appearing in the fourth quarter of 2010.