Singapore ranked second in Asia of having largest number of malicious activity per Internet user, according to Symantec's latest Internet Security Threat Report on Friday.

The report said this ranking was due to the small population of Internet users, which meant that each incident carried more proportional weight, according to a local television Channel NewsAsia report.

Data theft, data leakage and the creation of malicious code that targets specific organizations increased, while the United States remained the top country of attack origin, Asia was where all the action happens, the report said.

Hackers usually conduct "phishing" attacks to steal personal information. "Phishing" is a method used to trick consumers into giving up user information by fake e-mails from banks and other organizations, the report said.

It added that as a financial hub, Singapore has become more susceptible to phishing attacks.

Much of the data was stolen by infecting computers to allow hackers to gain access to passwords and other sensitive information through e-mails. More often than not, this happens with spam that has viruses or other malicious code.

Symantec, one of the world's largest security-software makers, also said that the stolen confidential information and captured data were sold on "underground" servers.

"Users should have an Internet security suite with technologies like antivirus, firewalls and anti-phishing that get continually updated," said Gavin Lowth, Symantec's director of online channels in Asia-Pacific and Japan.

Source: Xinhua