Print
Email
Print Edition Stories
MHT's Julie Donnelly: Gemvara launches custom-made jewelry over the Internet
MHT's Galen Moore: MBTA expands bus tracking feeds
Cable, telecom companies see net neutrality battle
A new study has Boston ranked number two among U.S. cities as a place to do business — that is, if your business is stealing sensitive data from other people’s computers.
In a study published this morning by California data security firm Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC), Boston was marked the second riskiest city in the U.S., after Seattle, due to its high concentration of cybercrime, risky behavior and WiFi availability. Out of 50 cities spotlighted in the report, Boston was a near second to the number-one spot, with a risk score of 176.6 to Seattle’s 188.2. Third-place Washington DC and fourth-place San Francisco were close behind.
According to Symantec’s report, Boston’s problems come from an especially high concentration of “spam zombies” — computers taken over by outside hackers to send out spam.
Another factor is the Hub’s many unsecured WiFi hotspots — 53.6 per 100,000 residents – where cyber criminals may lurk, trolling for unwitting users. While high-profile or widespread computer attacks are relatively rare, small-scale attacks like these threaten even savvy computer users, the report noted.
The study was conducted by Symantec’s Norton anti-virus software, in conjunction with Sperling’s BestPlaces, a website that collects data on cities. Data on cybercrime itself comes from Symantec’s own tracking of computers carrying out malicious activity. The data on WiFi locations came from JiWire, a website providing listings of WiFi locations.
Comments
If you are commenting using a Facebook account, your profile information may be displayed with your comment depending on your privacy settings. By leaving the 'Post to Facebook' box selected, your comment will be published to your Facebook profile in addition to the space below.
RSS Feeds
