Data published by Symantec today reveals the most bot-infected cities and countries across the Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region.
The top 10 ranking was compiled using telemetry data gathered during 2015 from Symantec security products and includes details about bot-infected PCs, Macs, smartphones, tablets and connected smart devices.
Since malicious bot behavior is quite easy to pick up thanks to a constant communications stream originating from infected devices, Symantec had a harder time pinning down infections to each specific country and city.
Based on the number of total bots in one specific city, Istanbul, Turkey was the most infected city, with the largest number of detected bots, followed by another Turkish city, Ankara, the country’s capital.
Symantec says that these two cities accounted for around two-thirds of Turkey’s entire bot population, with Istanbul raking in 29 percent of all bots, and Akara with 28 percent.
The top ten is rounded up by Rome (Italy), Budapest (Hungary), Szeged (Hungary), Moscow (Russia), Petah Tiqwa (Israel), Madrid (Spain), Paris (France), and London (UK).
Grouping the data by country, the top ten reflected the cities ranking, with Turkey, Italy, and Hungary “winning” the first three spots, followed by Germany, France, Spain, the UK, Poland, Russia, and Israel.
Taking into account the number of Internet users in each country, and comparing this data with the number of detected bots, we get a “bot density” factor that provides a more accurate reflection of which countries do an appalling job at securing their computers and connected devices.
According to bot density, the top ten is led by Hungary, with one bot for every 393 users, followed by Monaco (1/457), Andorra (1/591), Israel (1/809), Turkey (1/1139), Latvia (1/1240), Kuwait (1/1373), Italy (1/1829), Cyprus (1/2283), and Poland (1/2330).
With botnets increasingly leveraged for spam and DDoS attacks, the CERT teams of each of these countries will likely be busy in the following months. Don’t forget to check out Symantec’s interactive EMEA Bots map.
Top ten cities by total bot population
1 Istanbul, Turkey
2 Ankara, Turkey
3 Rome, Italy
4 Budapest, Hungary
5 Szeged, Hungary
6 Moscow, Russia
7 Petah Tiqwa, Israel
8 Madrid, Italy
9 Paris, France
10 London, UK
Top ten countries by total bot population
1 Turkey
2 Italy
3 Hungary
4 Germany
5 France
6 Spain
7 United Kingdom
8 Poland
9 Russia
10 Israel