The Bahamas is featured on a list of nations being used as a base of operation for cyberattackers.
According to report released on Wednesday, compiled by a global research team from Websence Inc., a global leader in Internet security, The Bahamas is ranked second among the top five countries in the world which host phishing sites. Phishing is an act of fraud in which persons fall victim to websites masquerading as trustworthy entities. The goal is to acquire passwords, credit card details, usernames and other types of information. Fake online payment processors, auction sites and popular social websites are typically used by these cyberattackers.
According to the report, the United States tops the list of nations which host phishing websites, followed by The Bahamas, Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom. The Bahamas is the only Caribbean nation on the list.
"Year-over-year, the number of malicious web-based attacks has increased by nearly 600 percent," said Charles Renert, vice president of Websense Security Labs. "These attacks were staged predominantly on legitimate sites and challenge traditional approaches to security and trust. The timed, targeted nature of these advanced threats indicates a new breed of sophisticated attacker who is intent on compromising increasingly higher-yield targets."
Every week, organizations face an average of 1,719 attacks for every 1,000 users, according to the report.
The report further noted that the United States of America, Russia and Germany are the top three countries hosting malware websites, and the top three countries hosting command and control servers are China, the United States of America and Russia.
The findings of the report are based on a year-over-year comparison of web, email, data, mobile and social media threats.

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