Hackers have expanded their area of operations to tier-ii cities and to smaller companies. Smaller cities such as Bhubaneswar, Surat, Kochi, Visakhapatnam and Jaipur have become the new targets for botnet attacks. Hyderabad ranks among the top three locations for bot-infected computers in India.

Hackers spread malware in the web and when people click the malicious links, they stealthily deploy software applications. These applications virtually turn the infected computers into slaves for hackers.

About 25 per cent of all bot attacks happened in these cities last year.

“Some cities which are repeatedly appearing in the list for origin of phishing in India - Ahmedabad, Nasik and Coimbatore are also figuring in the list of bot-infections,” Mr Shantanu Ghosh, Vice-President and Managing Director (India Product Operations) of Symantec, said.

Backed by broadband penetration, smaller cities are exploring opportunities offered by the virtual world. In turn, they are creating a lucrative pool of targets for cyber criminals, he said, commenting on the Internet Security Threat Report XVII released on Tuesday.

Targeted attacks are no longer limited to large organisations. Over 50 per cent of attacks target organisations with fewer than 2,500 employees, and almost 18 per cent target firms with fewer than 250 employees.

Majority of attacks target non-executives and employees in roles such as human resources, public relations and sales. “Individuals in these jobs may not have direct access to information, but they can serve as a direct link into the company,” it said.

>kurmanath@thehindu.co.in

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