According to data from security company Kaspersky, recently published 22% of the Portuguese population was the target of a computer attack attempt in 2018.

Portugal is the second country in the world with the highest percentage of single users affected by spam and phishing. According to the figures revealed, almost one in four of the population was the target of a computer attack last year.

In the first place in the ranking comes Brazil, a country in which 28% of the population was the target of spam or phishing in 2018. Just below Portugal comes Australia, a nation in which 20% of the population was targeted by cybercriminals.

Overall, according to Kaspersky Lab Spam and Phishing report for 2018, Portugal ranks 16th in the list of countries that are the preferred targets of hackers in attacks carried out by mass mailing, receiving 1. 6% of all malicious emails sent globally.

According to the same report, China is the country from which more spam messages are sent, representing 11.69% of the total number of malicious messages sent globally. In second place the US, responsible for 9.04% of the world spam, followed by Germany with 7.17%. In this ranking Portugal does not even appear in the top 20 of the most ‘spam’ producing nations.

Among the reasons for the biggest spam campaigns   are the General Regulation on Data Protection (RGPD), the World Cup in Russia and the launch of the iPhone XR and XR Max.  Spam accounted for 52.48% of all emails sent globally last year and almost 75% of these messages were less than 2KB in size.

“The year 2018 showed that cybercriminals continue to be aware of global events and use them to achieve their goals. We have seen a considerable increase in crypto-related phishing attacks and it is expected that new schemes will emerge in 2019, “reads the Russian company’s report.

“Email continues to be the most widely used method in corporate communications and remains a very tempting target for hackers. Phishing allows you to avoid protected information systems. Social engineering continues to cheat and, as statistics show, hackers continue to use it to infiltrate systems, “said Alfonso Ramirez, managing director of Kaspersky Lab Iberia, in a statement.  (Report source DN)